


Burn with Me: Redux

by AlexMorte



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Action, Angst, Bucky Barnes - Freeform, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Humor, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Romance, Smut, Trauma, steve rogers - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2020-01-01 05:00:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 91,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18329111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexMorte/pseuds/AlexMorte
Summary: Agent Dani Ryan is given a mission to protect the first Avenger and help him find his missing best friend before the bad guys do. The race is on, and lives and sanity are on the line, yet her eyes can't stop straying to Captain Steve Rogers. Now Dani is faced with the impossible task of finding Bucky Barnes before she catches feelings.





	1. And So It Begins

**Author's Note:**

> I originally posted this a while ago, but fell out of love with some of the things I did with the story, and therefore started to seriously dislike writing it. So I decided to start over, to keep much of what made readers and myself love the story but change a lot of the things that didn't make sense. So welcome to Burn with Me: Redux.
> 
> This fan fiction takes place after Avengers: Age of Ultron and before Civil War. Just go with me.
> 
> Crossposted on FanFiction.net

Something told me today was going to suck. Call it female intuition or a gut feeling, but the second Nick Fury called me in to his office at the new Avenger's headquarters, I knew it was going to be a bad day. Just how bad remained to be seen.

I opened the shiny metal door to Fury's office without knocking. He had windows, and even I wasn't short enough to miss when there was floor to ceiling glass. Granted, I'm not incredibly short. I'm about five-foot-three, which is close to average height for females, but, you know, sometimes I just couldn't see through windows without a boost. I had a feeling that Fury had taken short people in to account when he'd had the offices decorated. After Hydra had almost killed him, I didn't blame the guy for being a little paranoid.

Without being told, I closed the door and faced my director with my hands clasped behind my back like the good soldier I was. Well, the okay-ish soldier I was. I had the stances down pat, at least.

"You called for me, sir?" I asked, looking him in his one good eye.

He leveled his usual gaze at me, the one that said he didn't have time for bullshit, and said, "Yes, Agent Ryan. I did. I have a mission for you. You're going to accompany Captain America while he searches for a missing person, and you're going to give him access to our technological databases while you do it."

"Sir?" I asked.

I put every ounce of confusion in to that one word that I could. Fury didn't seem to care that I thought he was pulling my chain, or that I thought he'd gone just a little bit bonkers. He stood and made his way around his desk, moving past me to get to the door. Was he being serious? He couldn't be serious. Me, accompany Captain Steve Rogers? I mean, I'd been loaned out to "accompany" other people. Accompany, to Fury, meant bodyguard, by the way, or at the very least meant to help keep the person I was with stay alive since. He wanted me to be Captain America's bodyguard? I could understand Fury wanting me to help the Captain with technological equipment. Some of our databases and systems were difficult to navigate even if you hadn't been taken out of an ice block a few years ago. But being his bodyguard? That was ludicrous.

"You can't be serious," I said, following him out in to the hallway. "Who in the world would try to kill Captain America?"

"Anyone who wants the man he's looking for. Once he finds him, the only thing the Captain is good for target practice."

"Rogers can definitely handle nameless goons," I argued. "He's Captain America for godssake."

"Even Captain America needs help. During the war, he rarely worked alone. Even today he rarely works alone," Fury explained.

"He single-handedly broke in to a Nazi Hydra base, freed over four hundred soldiers, and destroyed the base, but you think he can't handle a search for a single man?" I asked.

"No," was the succinct response.

"Why me, sir? There are plenty of people that Captain Rogers' trusts who are far more capable of protecting him than I am."

"They're all too busy or too inexperienced. And you know damn well you're capable."

I closed my mouth and walked next to Fury in silence, practically biting my tongue to keep from telling him that he'd sustained a serious head injury when the hit had been put out on his life. The times when Rogers had needed military help, he'd been on a time crunch. World War II, the alien invasion, the Hydra infestation of S.H.I.E.L.D., taking out the Hydra bases with the Avengers. He could have done all of that single handedly if he hadn't been on a time limit. Okay, maybe I was a tad biased, but he wasn't on a time limit now. Besides, Rogers didn't deal in missing persons cases because he wasn't on that task force. This had to be personal, and personal doesn't usually have time limits. Usually.

"Who's the missing person, Director?" I asked, using long strides to keep up with the significantly taller Fury.

"Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes," Fury replied.

"Hold on a second," I scoffed. "We're searching for the guy who was engineered by Hydra to be a killing machine? The one who was hired to put you six feet under?"

"The one and the same," Fury replied. "Turns out Hydra wiped out Barnes' memory. Took him damn near killing Rogers for him to remember who he was."

I was being sent on a bodyguard mission with Captain America to find a super-human killing machine who had almost murdered Fury and his own best friend before remembering that he shouldn't do that. Great. Yep. Today sucked.

"Wonderful," I sighed, sarcasm dripping from every letter.

We came upon the mirrored hallway that was big enough to fit the Hulk and found Steve Rogers standing smack dab in the middle of the room. This was my first time meeting him face to face, and I had to say that I was a little star struck. Well, I was more than star struck. I was a female who hadn't gotten laid in forever, and he was both hot and a national hero. Fury and I walked toward him, and he walked toward us, giving me a much better vantage point to see if he really was as attractive as pictures portrayed him. The closer he got, the more I could see that he absolutely was.

He was in civilian clothes, though I was certain that was going to change soon. He wore a blue and green plaid button down that brought out the icy-coolness of his long-lashed blue eyes. The fabric was somehow both tight and loose, straining at his shoulders while the buttons in front hung loose, as if they weren't concerned that the rest of the shirt was in immediate peril of being ripped apart by a shrug. A pair of jeans and brown boots completed the outfit. His blonde hair was styled, in a way that said he took pride in his appearance, but that he wasn't vain. I realized I was staring as he opened full pink lips to speak. Jesus, I needed to get out more.

"Did Sam give you any more information on Bucky?" Rogers asked.

He stepped forward, close enough that I had to lift my chin a little to look up at him. He was six foot two, after all. My eyes were level with his collarbone and the slightly tanned skin that disappeared under the top button of his collared shirt. Hey, at least he wasn't any taller. I'd have gotten a crick in my neck like I usually got with Fury. It was only a two inch difference, but those two inches still hurt a little. Ha! That's what she said. Ugh, I'd have to mentally slap myself for that one later.

"No. Barnes seems to have fallen off the map again," Fury replied.

Rogers looked down, a sigh catching in his chest, making it puff out a bit further than usual. I watched the buttons strain, their little plastic selves suddenly clinging on for dear life, but was careful to catch his eyes when he looked up again. Mustn't gawk at the Captain. Shit like that had gotten me in trouble when I was younger. Turns out, some people didn't like to be gawked at and some people see it as a flat-out invitation for "a good time" later on.

"If Wilson does come up with anything new, it'll be directed to your new bodyguard, Agent Dani Ryan," Fury said.

He didn't have to motion to me for me to catch the hint that I needed to step forward and introduce myself. Rogers looked as perplexed as I'd felt when Fury mentioned that he'd be getting a bodyguard, and he turned his confused gaze to me as I stepped forward. The confusion only got worse. He'd seen me when we'd walked up, right? I was short, but god damn, I wasn't that short. So why was his confusion deepening as he looked at me? Had he just dismissed me until the time was needed, or had his own personal problems about Barnes narrowed down his vision to include only Fury? Rogers didn't seem like the dismissive type, so I was hanging my hat on him having tunnel-vision.

I admit, I certainly don't look like I should be named Dani, and I sure as hell don't look like a bodyguard. Bodyguards aren't usually shorter, or skinnier, than the person they're trying to protect, nor are they usually women. Yet somehow, there I was, a short, skinny, green-eyed woman with black hair half-way down my back and skin so white it could blind people. Sure, I was the muscly kind of skinny and was well trained in all sorts of combat, but most bodyguards haven't been handed business cards by fake producers saying they were pretty enough to be in the movies. Whether "movies" meant porn or not remained to be forever unseen.

I held my hand out to Rogers as he gave me a quick once over. The look had nothing to do with sex, like it might with most men who were sizing up a female. No, it was all professional, and it ended with him having one big question behind his eyes: how was I going to be his bodyguard when I was significantly smaller than the body I was supposed to be guarding. Fair question. I clearly got it a lot.

He took my hand like a gentleman and I gave him a firm handshake. He had the good grace give my hand a solid shake in return and not hold it like it would break, like most men did to me, but I knew that his grip was only the tip of the iceberg when it came to his strength. They didn't call him super-human for nothing. Hell, one time I'd overheard Tony Stark say that Rogers had pulled apart a log with his bare hands. Mr. Stark then proceeded to call Rogers a showoff and said that anyone could pull that stunt with the right leverage. Yeah, right.

"I'm Agent Dani Ryan," I stated as I pulled my hand from the warm circle of his fingers. "And I'm not your bodyguard. I'm more of a technologically savvy companion more than anything."

"She's your bodyguard," Fury corrected.

I flashed him a glare over my shoulder that I knew Rogers would catch, because there was no way he couldn't, and stepped back beside my boss. Not many people got to glare at Fury, but I was a particularly special person and I got certain benefits that others didn't. Benefits I should probably stop using in front of others.

"I don't need a bodyguard," Rogers said, his brow furrowing in mild frustration and confusion.

"We agree on something already, Captain," I said with a smile. I turned that smile on Fury and made it a baring of teeth. "I'm a tech savvy companion."

"Don't argue with me, Agent, or you'll be pulling desk duty for a year," Fury said. Gods help me, he meant business. I hated desk work. After my first screw up as a new agent, I'd been relegated to desk work. Me, and everyone around me, was happy that I'd made it out with my sanity intact. I was not a pencil pusher by any means, and I'd sooner shove a pen in my eye than spend another year in a chair.

"I'm arguing with you," Rogers stated suddenly. "I don't need a bodyguard. I-"

Fury cut him off by holding up one hand. Slowly, he turned his head to level one perfect brown eye on me. I could almost hear his neck creaking. I was tempted to tell him he was old and needed to be oiled like the Tin Man, but I was betting that would get me sent to machine maintenance, regardless of how much he liked me.

"Agent Ryan, please demonstrate why Captain Rogers would be at an advantage if he had you for a bodyguard," Fury said.

I looked at him, utterly confused. He couldn't possibly mean that he wanted me to- no, he wasn't that crazy. Was he? I searched his face, looking for anything that might tell me he wasn't telling me to do what I thought he was telling me to do. Everything I came back with told me that he'd gone mental. Maybe he'd spent too much time working behind a desk. Or maybe that hit really had given him brain damage.

"You can't possibly mean-," his gaze stayed the same. I frowned. "Sir, we agreed that I would never use-," he didn't so much as flinch.

I cut myself off with an angry sigh. He wasn't kidding, and his patient waiting would only last so long. The sigh thinned my lips, pulling them to my teeth in frustration. I spared a glance at Rogers, who looked even more befuddled now, before glaring at Fury. That glare would have made lesser men piss their pants. Fury was not lesser men, fortunately for him.

"Fine. But for the record," I jabbed a finger in Fury's direction, "I don't like you right now."

"I can live with that, Agent Ryan," Fury said calmly, as if he weren't breaking a promise.

We had agreed, dammit. He'd said that if I didn't jump the sinking ship that had been Hydra-infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. and run off to the CIA and stuck with him, my original recruiter, instead, that I'd never have to do this. And he was reneging on our deal. I was an idiot. I should have taken my chances with the CIA unencrypting my S.H.I.E.L.D file and used the Avengers base as my second option. I could strangle him right now.

I turned back to the Captain and took a step to the side so I could have both him and Fury in my sights. My eyes settled on Rogers and he looked back at me, wordlessly asking me what the hell was going on. Poor guy. He'd just been thrown in to one hell of a situation without even being asked if it was okay first. I guessed he was used to it, though.

"How do you feel about heights, Captain?" I asked, lifting my chin slightly. It was a slight show of dominance, because in this field, I had almost everyone beat and I damn well knew it. It was also a show of dominance toward Fury, my way of letting him know I wasn't happy about his decision and could totally kick his ass if I felt like it. Yes, I could kick his ass if I felt like going to prison and getting fired, but I could level him in to the ground if I really wanted to, and it would be real fuckin' easy, too.

"I have no problem with them. Why?" he asked. His brows knit together again, and even in my anger, I couldn't help but think that it was a rather adorable action. I also instantly wondered how many other women had thought the exact same thing. Probably too many to count.

I didn't answer Rogers' question. Instead, I gave a single nod and said, "Good. Hold on to your butts."

Without any further warning, I lifted my right hand and effortlessly lifted the two men in to the air. Fury was still and calm. He'd known what was coming. Rogers hadn't. Whatever tiny bit of sadism lurked inside of Fury had seen to that. Fury liked his secrets sometimes, and this was one of the times we had to let him have them for his own fun, even if it came at the Captain's expense, even if it pissed me off. Rogers' eyes widened as his feet left the ground. He looked down, as if establishing that what he felt was real before looking back at me. To his credit, he adjusted rather quickly, and his eyes narrowed back to their normal shape.

If I wanted to be honest with him, I'd have told him that I'd lifted my hand purely for his benefit. It was like using your hand as a guide when you were throwing a knife; it helped you find your target a bit easier, but it wasn't necessary. Also, it looked really cool. In actuality, I could lift a yard full of semi-trucks without so much as twitching an eyelid. All I had to do was throw out the hot tendrils of my power and lift those suckers in to the air.

Next came the really fun part. Well, it was fun for me. For others, it was a little too hot to handle. I lifted my left hand, my palm facing the ceiling, and willed those hot tendrils of power to become tangible, metaphorically forcing as much of my anger into it as I could. A ball of fire formed in my hand as Rogers watched. He did a good job of not widening his eyes again. He'd already had heaping dose of weird by this point in his life, let alone the past five minutes, so nothing that I did was going to shock him for very long. But he sure as hell wasn't expecting a fire vortex to rise between him and Fury, which is exactly the weirdness that I threw at him next. I flung the fireball between them and spun it around until it had flattened itself in to a circle on the floor. With a flick of my wrist, the fire spun upwards, reaching toward the ceiling as if its only mission was to consume the shiny material above our heads. Rogers' eyes followed the vortex, the flickering flames reflecting in drowning pools of blue. With a clench of my fist, the fire vanished, leaving the floor and ceiling intact. I lowered the pair to the ground and stepped next to Fury again.

I expected quite a few things to come out of Rogers' mouth, but for some reason, I wasn't prepared for what he asked.

"Are you like Wanda?"

Just like I suspected, he was back to business after being lifted off the ground and having a flame swirl mere feet from his face. Hooray for dealing with freaky shit on a daily basis.

"You mean lab-grown? Yes." I said the last word with finality, the kind that says the topic was no longer open for discussion. I might have been a little bit bitter about more than just Fury. It also seemed that burning off my anger in my fireball hadn't worked exactly as I'd planned. Dammit.

Rogers blinked in surprise, as if, of all the things I could have said, that was the one thing he hadn't expected. Boy, we were just tit-for-tat on a bunch of things today, weren't we? Okay, two things so far, but that had to count for something.

"You'll receive Agent Ryan's file in your hands before you leave," Fury said.

Oh, would you look at that? The anger was back and building to rage. I knew, logically, that in order for Rogers to know what was being placed upon him and for him to trust me, he would have to read the entirety of my file, but that didn't make me any less upset at the fact that he had to read it at all. I took a deep breath into my diaphragm and counted to twenty.

"Agent Ryan, you will leave this building when Captain Rogers does, whenever he decides that will be," Fury said.

"Yes, sir," I replied.

"I'm sorry to do this to, you Agent Ryan," Fury said suddenly, snapping my eyes up to his, "but I have no other choice."

Okay, that made me want to strangle him a tiny bit less. He was doing his job of trying to protect an Avenger and national icon. I could see the reasoning behind his decision, and I knew it probably hurt him to make it. Still hated it, though.

"I understand," I replied, looking forward. Looking at the Captain. "Let me know when you're ready to go, sir. If it's not immediately, and you need to find me, I'll probably be at sparring practice." For which I was very late.

"I still have some things to take care of before we go, Agent," Captain Rogers said, his brow furrowed and his head probably spinning from my rapid change from unprofessional to so professional I'd basically iced him and Fury out. "But the gym is on my way. I'll walk you."

That was an invitation that was going to be really difficult to say no to, so I gave him a single nod and said, "Thank you, sir. I appreciate it." I nodded once to Fury as well, a touch of angry disappointment behind my eyes as I said, "Director Fury."

Fury nodded back, dismissing us with an, "Agent Ryan. Captain," before turning away to go do whatever Fury does. Play chess with fighter jet figurines? With actual fighter jets? I dunno.

Despite wanting to walk away and leave him in the dust, I politely waited for Captain Rogers to walk toward me before I turned around and took my first steps toward the gym. I shouldn't take my anger out on him. Professionally, I couldn't. Hell, morally, I couldn't. How could anyone with half a brain cell take their anger out on Captain friggin' America, the guy who stood as a pillar of moral strength for decades? So, I was nice and walked with him, my wide gait matching his step for step despite our height difference.

"I have to ask, Agent," Rogers said out of nowhere. "What's in your file that Fury wants me to see?"

"You'll have to wait and read," I replied lightly. I shoved my irritation further down, trying to drop it somewhere near my toes so it didn't come out as malicious snark toward a superior who didn't know me enough to like me. I don't know if his walking me to the gym started out as a play to get information or if it turned into that, but it was grating on my already annoyed nerves.

"I'd like to hear it from you first. In your own words, not the words someone edited to go on paper. I like to know who I'm working with before I work with them and a file isn't going to tell me everything," he replied.

"Technically, it was edited to go in a computer document," I said. Yes, try to sidetrack the conversation with semantics.

"Agent Ryan," Rogers said, his tone making it clear that wasn't going to allow me to try to detract from his line of questioning with dry, almost-humor. Should have known that wasn't going to work. Okay. Different tack.

I sped up and stepped in front of him, stopping him in his tracks as I stared him down. His eyes widened a little again, his lips parting this time, and I swear I saw his shoulders tense the tiniest bit. Maybe stepping in front of a war-hardened man without warning wasn't my smartest move, but I didn't know how else to make a man listen, and make the message stick, without asserting some sort of dominance over him first. His surprise at my insubordination quickly turned into a frown, his eyes cautious yet curious, clearly wondering what I was doing but not sure he was going to like it when he found out.

"Do you tell anyone about what you saw during the war? What you did?" I asked.

"No," he replied, realization quickly dawning upon him.

"Why not? It's pretty well documented."

He looked at the floor and sighed. "Because what happened over there, what we did, it's not something you talk about."

I locked eyes with him when he looked up, intent and unblinking as I said, "Then you know why I don't talk about it."

I saw the regret in his eyes as I turned away, this time giving myself permission to leave him behind, driving the point home even further that he'd stepped over the line. I heard his footsteps come up behind me, quickly catching up with no effort until he was at my side like nothing had happened.

"I'm sorry, Agent Ryan. I didn't mean to push you and I should have realized that what's in your file might be a sensitive topic for you," he said.

Yes, he should have. He was an allegedly intelligent man and he'd been given plenty of smack-you-in-the-face hints that my file might not be the prettiest flower in the bouquet. However, he was trying to be nice and I wasn't really angry with him in the first place. Projection sucked.

"Thank you for your apology, Captain," I said, my tone subdued. "Just, please do me a favor and don't ask me about it again."

"I can't promise that, but I promise I won't ask without a reason to," he replied.

I guessed that was the best I was going to get, seeing as how he literally said he likes to know who he's working with, so I let it go.

"So, what's our destination?" I asked. Best try to learn a little about the mission now, before we even left the building.

"The gym," he said. "Unless you do your sparring practice in the kitchen."

I looked up at him and couldn't help the shocked chuckle that escaped my throat. Had he just made a joke? After all of that? I guess I couldn't blame him for wanting to relieve a bit of the pressure building between us, pressure being built up by me and my issues. I did need to chill the fuck out. We were going to be spending an untold amount of time together and I couldn't be bitchy for all of it.

"You know what I meant," I said, giving him a little half-smile. "Our destination for this mission."

"I'll find that out when I get back to my office. I'm sure Fury has had everything sent over by now."

"Yeah, probably by a damn ninja robot," I muttered. "Paranoid bastard."

Rogers chuckled at that and I whipped my head around again. Holy shit, I'd made him laugh. This felt really fucking weird. It was kind of surreal, but mostly weird, to be walking down a hall with Captain America, making him laugh immediately after making him feel guilty. What had my life become?

"Yeah, that sounds like him. But he has good reason to be paranoid," Rogers said.

"I never said he didn't, but if he's paranoid to the point on ninja robots, someone is going to have to have a talk with him. Or get him to give one to me, because that's a really cool idea," I said.

"An idea that you just can up with," Rogers pointed out.

"Nothing wrong with being a little self-congratulatory in an underhanded way," I responded.

"I'm just saying, a little humility can go a long way," Rogers said, clearly teasing me. Good lord, what was happening?!

"That is a little humility."

"Not really."

I sucked on my teeth to make a quick noise of distaste. "You…" I started, my argument dying on my tongue before it had really even lived, "probably know more about that than I do, so I'm going to shut up."

He chuckled again and I caught him looking down, his eyebrows raising as if to say he got that a lot. When he looked back up, some of the humor was gone, lost to his thoughts but not so lost that he wasn't still in good spirits.

"We'll leave in two hours," he said, making it sound more like information than an order. And yes, it was definitely an order, whether either of us wanted it to be or not. "That should give you enough time to do everything you need to do and pack a bag. I'm not sure how long we'll be gone, so pack accordingly."

"Yes, sir," I said, my reply as light as I could make it while still being professional and hiding a brand-new level of discomfort. "There's a problem with that, though."

"What problem?" he asked.

"I don't live on base."

Rogers took a breath and nodded, almost to himself, as if he should have seen that one coming. Jeez, looking for Barnes must've had him really distracted for him to not remember that most agents don't reside on base, that the only people that did permanently reside on base were Wanda and Vision. Everyone else, like Thor, Natasha Romanoff, and even Fury sometimes, would crash there if they needed to, but it wasn't a home for most of the people who went there every day.

"Of course. We'll have to stop by your home so you can pack."

"Right," I said, drawing out the word a little more than I meant to.

"Is something wrong?" Rogers asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

"It's just…" I paused, looking for the right words to say. Unsure I would ever find them, I decided to screw it and let my lips move. "How comfortable are you with letting someone you just met into your safe space?"

He nodded once again in understanding, this time giving me a little apologetic smile. "Not very."

"You. Me. Same page," I said with an almost imperceptible smirk. My eyes landed on the gym doors a few yards ahead. We didn't have much longer to discuss this, as I was pretty certain he didn't want anyone outside of his circle to know about his mission to find his homicidal bestie. "Something tells me we won't have to stop by your place."

"That something is correct," Rogers said. His voice softened a little, suddenly going distant as he added, "I've been looking for him for over a year. I wanted to be ready to leave the second I found out where he was."

Aw, hell. I was going to have to cancel my sparring practice, wasn't I? I knew he didn't say that to intentionally make me drop all of my plans to immediately go on this personal side quest with him, but I couldn't even imagine what it must be like to be in his shoes. Sure, his friend had straight up murder-rampaged all over Washington DC, but according to all of the Captain's files, Barnes had been his best friend since he was a skinny Brooklyn teen, and if the guy had truly broken out of Hydra's mind control, he was going to need all the help he could get. As soon as he could get it.

"I'll see what I can do about cutting my sparring practice," I said. "Get us on the road faster."

"Oh, no, I didn't mean to-" he started, turning to me, his hand going out as if to stop my mind from cooking up any miscommunication between us.

"I know," I said, trying to soothe his new anxiety. "You're right, though. You've waited long enough. If I were in your shoes, I wouldn't be nearly as nice."

I kept my eyes on the gym doors, wondering exactly what I could say that would make this a quick an easy process, and I desperately tried to not focus on Captain Rogers's eyes intently boring into the side of my head.

"Thank you," he said, gently.

"Thank me if I can manage to pull it off," I said.

My reach for the handle was halted when Rogers got there first, his hand making the bent metal bar look much smaller than it did when I held it. Jesus, this guy was big. I would not want to be caught in a back alley with him. Okay, that depended in the context, but I wouldn't want to get in a fight with him. His hand looked like it was the size of my face. It probably wasn't, but I was feeling over-indulgent in my comparisons today, it seemed.

"Whether you pull it off or not doesn't matter," he said. "I still appreciate it."

With that, he opened the door for me, ending the discussion while being a perfect gentleman. The sounds of masculine laughter, chatter, and grunting flowed from the room, and I walked in to see about ten guys ripping out bicep curls, sparring on the mat, or just sitting off to the side chatting while they dabbed at their necks with towels. Rogers followed behind, letting the door close with a soft hiss.

One man stood alone, almost putting himself in a corner, checking his watch and tapping his foot like a mother waiting for her kids to hurry up and get downstairs because the bus was about to leave. Sean McIntosh stood tall at about six-foot-three, and he was wiry, so thin you'd think he couldn't fight a balloon much less a human, but that skinny frame was deceptive. He was all lean muscle, and those long arms of his gave him the upper hand, no pun intended, in a fight, making him an excellent hand-to-hand fighter. His curly dark brown hair was cut short and fighting hard against the gel he'd slicked through it, and he already had both sweat stains and a food stain on his grey shirt. For someone who ate so sloppily, you'd think he'd be sloppy in everything else, but he wasn't. It was a weird dichotomy he had going on. He looked up as I made a beeline for him, bringing Rogers in my wake, and those big, sapphire blue eyes settled on me. His handsome face scrunched into a frown and he threw out his arms.

"Where the hell have you been?" he asked, peeved.

His eyes slid behind me then, and his frustration changed to respect as his arms slowly lowered to his side. I realized that the entire gym had gone kind of quiet as I'd made my way toward McIntosh, realizing that a superior and a hero was amongst them before the chatter resumed. Whatever Rogers had needed to do to get them back into a talking mood had taken him a moment, too, otherwise McIntosh sure as hell wouldn't have said shit to me first.

"I've been busy," I said, drawing his attention back to me for a split second.

Rogers came up behind me, staying to my right so I could see him in my peripheral vision, and Mcintosh's eyes flowed away from me to follow the Captain. I might as well have been one of the Century BOBs.

"Right," I said. "Introductions. Captain Rogers, Agent Sean McIntosh. Agent McIntosh, Captain Steve Rogers."

McIntosh held out his hand, which Rogers immediately took, and said with such reverence that I was almost certain the man thought he was talking to a god, "It's nice to meet you, Captain."

"It's nice to meet you, too, Agent McIntosh," Rogers said politely.

It probably wasn't. The lanky man had stars in his eyes to the point of damn near looking like a cartoon character. And I thought I had been bad.

"Look, man," I said, bringing McIntosh's gaze back to me and hopefully saving both men some discomfort, "I hate to do this to you, but-"

"If you want to extend our time because you were late, no can do, Pufferfish," McIntosh said, suddenly back to his normal self. Okay, maybe it was slightly exaggerated since he was openly calling me nicknames, but at least he wasn't fawning over the Captain anymore. He looked at his watch again and said, "I have to be at the gun range in ten minutes."

"The gun range doesn't close until lights out," I pointed out.

"Yeah, but today they have those gelatin blocks and it's first come, first serve, and I'm not missing out because your skinny ass was late."

"I was busy, Papercut!" I argued. If he was going to pull out nicknames, so was I, dammit, and I wasn't the only skinny one around here. If he stood sideways and stuck his tongue out, he'd look like a zipper. "Besides, you don't think you can beat me in ten minutes?"

Curse me and my need to push things! Here he was telling me he had to go, giving me the perfect out so Rogers and I could start our friend-finding mission, and here I was goading him into a sparring match. A therapist would probably tell me I didn't really want to go on this mission as much as I said I did.

"I know I couldn't," McIntosh replied with a smile.

"Oh-ho," I grinned. "Smart man."

"I bet I can beat you in ten minutes," a voice said.

As one, McIntosh, Rogers, and I turned to see a man standing not fifteen feet away, a cocky smirk on his unfortunately good-looking face. I say unfortunately because he was a massive fucking douchebag. His name was Dirk Tannen, a name so close to Biff Tannen that it could be the only explanation for him being such an asshole. I mean, your parents had to hate you if they gave you a name that sounded close to both Biff and dick, right? That had to cause some psychological issues. A black t-shirt was stretched tight over his heavily muscled chest, though not nearly as muscled as Captain Rogers', and black basketball shorts swung loose around his thighs, both of which showed off the kind of tan you only got from good genes. He was of average height for a guy, about five-foot-eight, which some women would say was the perfect height so they could get a good look at his whiskey colored eyes and get their fingers in his short blond hair. Those women didn't know a narcissist when they saw one.

"Idiot," McIntosh muttered under his breath, and I couldn't help but laugh, forcing myself to suppress it so it came out a weak snort.

"What? You think I can't?" Tannen said, indignant from my laughter. He was trying to impress Captain Rogers, we all knew that, but he'd also pulled shit like this before with other female agents just because he could. Douchebag.

"I know you can't," I replied.

"Twenty bucks says you're wrong," he said, lifting his chin in challenge.

I raised an eyebrow at that and looked at McIntosh, who looked back at me, his eyebrows trying to touch his hairline. He was impressed the guy was throwing down bets, too. Good to know. I cocked my head at him a little, a question of if I should take it. He shrugged his eyebrows and pulled his lips into a deep frown, or what I liked to call sturgeon mouth, and tilted his head as if telling me to go for it.

Pretending the Captain wasn't there, I said, "Make it fifty."

"Deal," Tannen said, an annoying glint of satisfaction in his eyes.

I took a deep breath through my nose, pursing my lips and bringing my shoulders high, as if in thought. "You know what? Nevermind."

"What?" he asked, the sparkle flickering and dying as confusion and anger set in.

"I changed my mind," I said.

"What, are you scared I'll kick your pretty little ass all around this big gym and make you look bad in front of your fuck buddy?" he spat, jutting his chin out at McIntosh.

I felt both McIntosh and Captain Rogers stiffen in indignation. Oh, this was going way better than I'd expected it to! Tannen had hoped to make himself look good in front of the Captain, and now he'd just alienated himself in a single sentence thanks to his need to feed his ego and misogyny. Brilliant!

"No, sweetie," I said in most pleasant voice I could. "I've just already proven I'm better than you multiple times and I have other things to do than cater to your fragile masculinity. How about you spend that fifty bucks on therapy for your gambling addiction instead?"

It's amazing just how loud various soft utterances of "oh, shit" can sound when the room has mildly okay acoustics. Tannen's face turned bright red, embarrassment and rage flashing in his eyes before he whirled around and stalked out of the gym, probably to go to the shooting range. Ooo, I really hoped McIntosh ran into him. McIntosh was going to lay into him about the fuck buddy comment. Everyone with a brain could see we were more like brother and sister. Unfortunately, Tannen didn't have a brain.

"What the hell?" McIntosh griped in fake exasperation. "I could have used that fifty bucks!"

"So you fight him," I said, turning back to both him and the Captain so we stood in a little triangle. Rogers had an odd mix of confusion, disappointment, and curiosity on his face. "Besides, hitting him in the bank account won't sting for long, but hitting him the pride should shut him up for a while."

McIntosh nodded his head to the side and made a noise that said it made sense to him. Rogers, though, still looked confused.

"Is he always like that?" Rogers asked, nodding where Tannen used to be.

"Yes," McIntosh and I said together.

Rogers looked between us, seeming somewhat surprised. Whether it was over how in synch we were or how much of a dick Tannen was, I wasn't sure.

"Why does he still work here if he acts that way? Behavior like that shouldn't be tolerated," Rogers said, his brow furrowing.

"Unfortunately for everyone, he's really good at his job and his dicketry isn't egregious enough for the agency to lose his skills," I replied, loosely paraphrasing what Fury had told me when I asked him the same question about Tannen. Fury said he was actively looking into a replacement, but he had red tape and bureaucrats to go through to both fire and replace Tannen, who was beloved by everyone who didn't actually know him.

Rogers made a face, the one people usually made when I said something they found funny yet odd, and took a breath to say something. McIntosh beat him to it.

"You're the only person I know who can use both 'dicketry' and 'egregious' in the same sentence and somehow make it work."

I gave him a little half-smile and shrugged. "I'm versatile."

"Oh, you can say that again, Pufferfish," McIntosh quipped.

This time Rogers held a hand up so he could get a word in edgewise and asked, "Why do you call her Pufferfish?"

"Oh! Well, you know how if you're careful, you can pet a pufferfish?" McIntosh explained.

"Yes," Rogers nodded.

McIntosh pointed at me, his palm open and coming down in front of him in an arc to snap to a stop in front of his chest.

"She's as sweet as can be, but if you catch her at the wrong time, she'll stick you," he continued.

"I'm not sweet," I muttered, mostly to myself, my almost unfocused eyes staring straight ahead at a rack of dumbbells.

"Sweet as a peach," McIntosh teased. "But then you look at her wrong and-" he closed his fists and knocked his knuckles together, bringing them apart like an explosion as he puffed his cheeks out, the tiniest wisp of air escaping his lips before they sealed shut. I wish they'd seal shut until he left the room.

As much as I wanted to look up and see what the Captain's expression was, I wanted to sigh at the rack of dumbbells more. "I swear, if that nickname catches on, I'm going to kill you."

McIntosh flashed his fingers out just in front of his chest, pulling his bottom lip under his teeth and releasing it quickly to sound like a cartoon arrow lodging in a tree. "Ffft! Spines."

I pursed my lips in a frown and shook my head. "Nevermind. I'm killing you now."

I had barely begun to turn toward him when he levitated back ten feet amid his own cry of protest.

"Nononono! See?! See what I mean?! Spines!" he exclaimed, looking at the Captain but pointing a perfervid finger at me.

"Yeah, spines," I said, taking a step toward him. I put my hand just behind my back as if I were reaching for a knife and added, "Come here. I'll show you where I keep them."

"Ah ah ah!" He danced back a few more feet and looked at Rogers again. "Captain, can you do me a favor and please hold her! You're the only one who can stop her now!"

"As if I can't find you later," I said.

McIntosh stopped, looking thoughtful for a moment before he said, seriously and calmly, "You know, you have a point."

"Oh, I know," I said. I motioned a hand toward him, essentially shooing him away. "You'd better head out before you miss out on the good shit. I'll catch you later, Ent."

"Yeah. I'll stop by Hobbiton later on and we can spar then," McIntosh said, slowly backing away in the direction Tannen had run off in.

"Cool. I'll-" Captain Rogers stepped forward, the motion reminding me I'd had him in my periphery and reminding me that we had other plans, which he clearly knew I'd already forgotten about. "-not be there."

Dammit, my subconscious really did not want me to go on this mission. Well, suck it up, me, because I was going.

"What? Why not?" McIntosh asked. He looked between me and the Captain and I saw the lightbulb switch on over his head. I shook my head the slightest bit and cast my eyes at the few men who were still paying attention after he'd caught their attention with his exaggeratedly fake fear, wordlessly telling him to not make a big deal out of it, to not say anything at all. To his credit as both an agent and a human, he simply said "Oh. Okay. I'll catch you in tiny town when I can then."

I gave him a small smile of appreciation and said, "Careful of low doorways."

"You know I never am!" he joked, turning away.

Rogers and I watched his retreating back for a moment, the lank getting thinner and thinner the farther he got. And he wondered why I'd given him the nickname Papercut.

"Well," I muttered to myself, "that was both easier and more difficult than I expected."

"Were you expecting guard dragons?" Rogers asked, his tone almost completely deadpan, save just the smallest hint of teasing. "Maybe Smaug?"

I looked up at him like he'd just said robots had squid legs, my face a mixture of humor, confusion, and awe. He smiled at me with half of his mouth and a twinkle in his eyes, the kind of look someone gives you when they either know how hot they are and are trying to use it against you or have no fucking clue how hot they are and don't know any better than to flash you knee-weakening smiles. Or maybe he was just trying to make me laugh and make a connection with me since I clearly knew Tolkien.

"It's like we're the same person," I joked, then added seriously, "But no. I expected a bitch fit, and not one from Tannen. McIntosh is a great dude, but he likes to make my life harder just for fun sometimes."

"Hence easier and more difficult," Rogers said, sending his gaze around the gym.

"Exactly," I said.

My gods, he read Tolkien and he said hence? Where could I find a boyfriend like him? All the good ones seemed to be gay, taken, or famous. Okay, okay, now was not the time for that kind of thinking. What I needed to be thinking about was what kind of guns and clothes I was going to pack for this mission. I turned to Captain Rogers, catching his attention in an apparently surprising way as he turned to face me with his eyebrows raised.

"I'll go grab my stuff from the locker room," I informed him.

He looked in that direction, the same direction that both Tannen and McIntosh had gone in, and gave a single nod. "I'll pick up the reports from my office. We'll meet in the carport in fifteen minutes."

"Sounds great," I replied.

Without another word, I turned and walked away, side sweeping the leg of a guy who quietly whistled at me, making him lose balance and almost drop the barbell on his foot. You'd think some of these guys would learn, but they never seem to.

The women's locker room was standard and boring, all the way from the shower stalls with the flimsy plastic curtains to the wooden benches that should have looked new, since they were, but didn't. As I pulled my gym bag and personal items out of my locker, I couldn't help but think of how utterly insane all of this was. Me, help Captain America? What the fuck was I going to do that another agent couldn't? It wasn't like I could flambé random people in the street or Grease Lightning our car into the air. If I saw Fury before I left, I was going to tell him to get another CAT scan, because clearly something was still wrong with him. Maybe I'd e-mail it to him so I didn't have to watch his eye bulge. Eh, I'd figure it out.

I dug a burner phone out of my workout bag and dialed the extension for the carport, requesting that they pull around a decent-sized car for me to use.

"Director Fury has already requested a car for you, Agent Ryan," the man on the other end of the line said.

"Oh, he did?" I asked, trying my hardest to sound genuinely curious rather than vaguely threatening. Fury had reasons for everything he did, but I still wasn't over being mad at him.

"Yes, ma'am. It's already waiting for you," the agent said.

"Alright. Thank you, Agent…"

"Benitez," he man said, filling in the blank I'd left him.

"Thank you, Agent Benitez. I'll be there shortly."

As I pulled the phone away from my ear, I heard his form of goodbye, a very professional "Ma'am," before I pushed the end call button. So, Fury had gotten us a car and I had ten minutes to mosey down the hallway toward the carport. Nah, these halls weren't interesting enough to mosey down, so I'd just walk like a normal human and get there early.

I knew these fifteen minutes were all for the Captain anyway. He wanted to try to cram in as much information as he could before we got on the road, and I had a feeling he could cram a lot in the five minutes he'd probably have in his office. Of course, the dude could also run super-fast, so if he'd sprinted there, he'd have ten minutes to read. Either way, it looked good for the mission and bad for me.

I got to the carport a good six minutes before I was supposed to, only to find Captain Rogers opening a door on the completely opposite side of the carport. The carport basically looked like a smaller air hanger. It was meant to be like a valet station for people going on missions, so it had to be big enough to fit multiple cars for a big task force. The only bummer was you couldn't have them drop your personal car off here. You had to go pick that shit up yourself from the parking garage.

I got to the car before the Captain did and made my way around the back to stand in front of the driver's side door of our black SUV. A man in generic black military garb with the name tag Benitez on his left breast silently walked up and handed me the keys. I gave him a single nod in thanks and he walked off. It was a good thing I'd walked in with an open hand, because Rogers didn't have a free hand to speak of. He had one large duffel bag slung over his shoulder and two more hanging heavy from his hand. Okay, the ones in his hands were smaller, but there was definitely some heft to them. The point was, his hands were full.

"Are you planning on going to Australia for a month? Just how much did you pack?" I joked.

"One of these," Rogers said, his lips quirking in a smile as he lifted the two bags, "is yours."

I gave the fakest, most flowery gasp in the world and in a voice just shy of breathy said, "A present for me? But I didn't get you anything."

He grinned at me that time. "That's alright. I won't hold it against you."

He dropped the larger bag from his hand, apparently having planned this, and handed me the smaller bag, the strap making the car keys dig into my hand. It was weighty, but it wasn't heavy. The issue was that the weight shifted a lot, like there were a lot of unsecured items in there sliding around every time a muscle in my arm twitched.

"Fury left it in my office," Rogers explained.

I frowned at him, confused. Why not leave the bag in my locker? I was one hundred percent sure he had the combination. He wasn't a creeper, but after Hydra infested his sacred workplace like a bunch of cockroaches, he wasn't going to let any new bugs slip by.

"Funny," I said, my brows still furrowed together. I tossed my head back over my shoulder at the SUV and said, "He left this here."

Rogers's mouth opened as if he were going to say something, but closed without so much as a click of his teeth, his eyes widening and narrowing at the same time, all ending with a nod as if to say that everything made sense now.

"What?" I asked. I did not like being this out of the loop on something when I was supposed to be protecting someone.

"Look in the bag," Rogers said, gently motioning towards it with a small smile on his face.

My frown deepened as I set both my bag and the mystery bag on the ground. "Did you learn how to be cryptic from Fury or does that come naturally?"

"You'll have to wait and see, Agent Ryan," he replied.

I raised an eyebrow at him and looked him up and down, not out of lust, but out of approval and pulled my lips into the deep frown-looking thing that was sturgeon-mouth. "Well played, Captain."

"Thank you," he said, that small smile coming back, this time looking appreciative.

"Any time," I muttered back, already distracted. Lowering myself down on one knee, I unzipped the bag and found a whole lot of fun. There were several guns, replacement clips, boxes of bullets, a laptop, some flash drives, a couple of file folders, and throwaway cellphones. There was also an Ohio license plate and a piece of paper. I leaned in a little closer. It was a registration paper for the exact car we were driving, only the plate numbers were the ones from the Ohio plate and not the ones from the New York plate that I knew was actually on the back of the car. Goddamn, that man really did think of everything. If you're a bad guy looking for a dude based out of New York, you're going to look for New York plates. It wasn't foolproof, but this would make it easier to throw people off our trail if we had to leave the state, which it was looking like we were going to have to do if Fury had given us a second license plate.

I zipped the bag back up, grabbed the handles of both duffels, and stood. "Well, that was unexpected."

"I've learned to expect the unexpected when it comes to Fury," Rogers said.

"You'd think I'd have learned that lesson by now, but somehow I haven't. I blame falling out of a tree as a kid," I joked, deadpan.

Rogers was suddenly very concerned and intrigued. "You fell out of a tree as a kid?"

"No," I replied, making the word a chuckle. I hit the button to unlock the doors and turned toward the car, adding, "I watched someone else do it, though. I learned to never climb a tree while it was raining. Those things are way more slippery than they look."

Rogers sighed behind me, and I couldn't tell if it was one of those exasperated sighs where he already didn't want to work with me or one of those sighs where he thought the joke was on par with a bad pun. Either way, he was unfortunately stuck with me and my shitty humor, and it probably sucked to be him right now. I threw my bag in the back seat before I opened the driver's door and started to slide in, moving to place the goodie bag duffel in the passenger's side footwell. He could move it if he wanted to, which he probably would, but at least this way he could easily reach all the information he needed.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

I blinked at him, confused. He had eyes, right? "Getting in the car."

"You're not driving," he said, the hint of kindness in his voice not making the sentence any less nonnegotiable. Watch me try anyway.

"Sorry, but you're riding shotgun on this one, Captain," I said, very carefully controlling my face so my half-smile didn't turn into a smirk. "It's my place."

"Steve," he said, suddenly. And then, as if it were completely normal to say your own name apropos of nothing, he added, "Your job, whether we like it or not, is to protect me, and you can't do that behind the wheel."

"I forgot you've never seen me during our driving simulations. I can chew gum and walk at the same time, Rogers. It's not a big deal."

I had just barely had time to drop the bag before he said, "Call me Steve. And of the two of us, only one of us can lift a car with their mind. Leave the defensive driving to me."

I snapped my head around to look at him, more stunned now than I had been when I'd been tasered. He wanted me to call him Steve? I knew I had a habit of being incredibly unprofessional half the time, hence me sometimes calling him by his last name rather than his rank, but calling a superior by their first name was so out of my comfort zone it might as well have been in outer space. I didn't even call McIntosh by his first name and he was damn near my brother.

"Mm, don't like it. Sticking with Rogers," I said, my eyebrows beetled together to show my displeasure. Quickly, before he could even think of getting a word in edgewise, I added, "Of the two of us, only I know how to get to my house."

A quiet sigh strained the buttons on his shirt again, his exasperation staring me in the face this time rather than being aimed at my back. Something in his eyes said he'd been hoping I would easily comply, but that he wasn't expecting me to, seeing as how I'd been as defiant as possible within the limits of my job in the short time he'd known me. That something also said that this conversation wasn't over, no matter how fast I changed the subject.

And bless his large, morally upstanding heart, he tried his hardest to push those thoughts away and make an attempt at teasing.

"You can give me directions, like a GPS," he said.

"Am I really so impersonal that I seem like a machine?" I asked, smiling a little so he knew I was joking too. Might as well indulge him a little.

"No, but I'm starting to understand why you got the nickname Pufferfish."

I pursed my lips at that and popped them in aggravation, not at Rogers, but at McIntosh.

"You know what?" I asked, sliding out of the driver's seat. "It is a good idea that you drive, because I am going to spend the entire time planning a way to kill him."

Rogers took a step back so we wouldn't be in each other's personal bubbles, his eyes roving over my face until I turned away to stalk toward the back of the car. Was I exaggerating my anger? Yes. Was he searching my face and body language to see if I was exaggerating? All signs pointed to absolutely.

"Are you really going to think of ways to kill him?" he asked.

I stopped by the bumper and turned to look at him. "If I say yes, are you going to let me drive?"

The smile he flashed was one that said I'd just confirmed his suspicions of not being a homicidal maniac and that I'd just blown my chances of being in control of the wheel. "No."

"Dammit!" I muttered. Me and my big mouth.

I heard Rogers chuckle as I turned away to walk around the back of the car and take my spot in the passenger seat. Oh yeah. Today was going to be all kinds of interesting


	2. Sanctuary

The car ride to my apartment was quieter than I'd expected, as if as soon as I'd started rummaging through the duffel bag, Rogers had considered trying to have a conversation a lost cause. He wasn't wrong, but I wasn't trying to be rude and I think he knew it. I was checking out the goodies that Fury had given me, the kinds of guns, how many phones, how many flash drives, and checking the pockets for anything else he might have stashed out of sight. And just as I'd thought, he'd hidden several fake IDs and credit cards, ones for me and Rogers both. How thoughtful. As if no one would recognize Rogers on sight. Out of the corner of their eye. In a blizzard.

I gave Rogers the occasional direction, my head down most of the time, going purely on memory since I did drive back and forth damn near every day. I still wasn't all that happy that I hadn't gotten to drive, and I was starting to feel childish about it, but to be fair to me and my pettiness, I'd basically had my control stripped away from me with a single broken promise and I was grabbing at any ounce of control I could have.

Logically, I knew Rogers was right. Unlike literally all of my other charges, he had years of intense defensive driving under his belt, was more than capable of keeping his calm while being shot at, and could more than likely knock some heads in while he zipped around people. As his bodyguard, though, and as the person with a very special skillset, he needed me to be at the top of my game to keep him safe, which was easier to do if I wasn't also trying to do fancy moves with a steering wheel. Most people usually had more than one bodyguard, too, one of whom would drive, but we just had to be different.

I tugged at the belt of my work uniform of the day, which I'd idiotically forgotten to take off in the locker room. Okay, maybe not idiotically since I'd been on a time crunch and I was under more mental stress than I had been in a while, but metal buckles in your lower intestine did not make for fun travel when you were hunched over in your seat. Why did this have to happen on the day we ran training drills? At least the rest of the outfit wasn't too uncomfortable. A simple black shirt loose enough to hide an inner-pants holster and black cargo pants tucked into black combat boots.

I felt the car stop and looked up. We were sitting at a red light in Lake George, the small town I called home. It was home to about four thousand other people, too, was pretty close to the base, and rent didn't cost me my firstborn child like a bigger city would. That meant I got to spend my hard-earned wages on fun things like books rather than on a fuckton of gas. Plus, I got to sleep in a little.

The place was historic, with Fort Ticonderoga of Revolutionary War fame sitting right on the lake, and not too far away was Saratoga Springs, an even smaller town where a Revolutionary War battle had taken place. Tucked away in the mountains and surrounded by beautiful trees, the place was an incredible spot to live. It was also a fucking tourist trap, but hey, every town has its faults. And I had the feeling that if we'd had the luxury, Captain Rogers would be right there among the tourists, eating up every drop of information he could get. And hey, at least it wasn't a big city. I'd never really been a big fan of them, and I'd hated that S.H.I.E.L.D. had operated out of D.C. That was one plus side to the Hydra infestation, I guessed: I could finally be in my element and not surrounded by smog and a never-ending parade of morons. Yes, the parade of morons had definitely lessened in length since I'd moved. Oh, happy day.

Rogers looked at me, wordlessly asking where to go next, and I directed him to a brick apartment building. I motioned for Rogers to stay where he was as I opened my door, so I could actually start doing my job properly and look around for anyone suspicious before he got out. I didn't think anyone followed us, but these are the things you have to do, whether you think you've been followed or not. He did as he was told, and only opened his door when I gave him a thumbs up. Keeping my head up so I could see out the windows, I grabbed my duffel bag of guns and my personal bag, backed out, and closed the door so Rogers could lock the car.

Well, I thought he was going to lock the car. Instead he grabbed his own bags from the back seat, just like I had, then hit the button on the fob until the car beeped. Huh. Seems like he was paranoid, as well. Okay, well, maybe he wasn't paranoid since he didn't know this area. Or maybe he was. Maybe I was thinking too much and should start moving.

I led him toward the front door of the building, digging into my front pocket for the apartment keys. I found them and opened the door for him, seeing as he hadn't yet flung one of the massive bags over his shoulder like it was an unconscious human and therefore had his hands full. He thanked me as he walked through, his shoulders almost seeming like they met the doorframes even though he turned to the side a little to make room for the bags. Jesus, his shoulders could probably touch the frames of a barn door! Why the hell was I protecting him when he could rip me in half?! I demanded to speak to management! Again. Even though I would be ignored. Again.

I walked through the doorway, finding him standing in the middle of our small foyer, taking up half of the space and looking up at the ceiling as if he could see through it.

"What floor do you live on?" he asked.

"Fifth floor," I said, turning toward the stairwell. "And pray no one comes out of their apartment. These stairwells were barely made for two skinny people to walk side by side. I don't think people are going to be able to squeeze around you and those duffel bags."

He turned to look at me, eyebrows high as he flicked his eyes between the bags in my hand and my face. "And they can make it past you?"

"I am skinny people," I replied. "Skinny people with skinny bags of guns. C'mon."

I turned away from a blossoming half-smile and regretted it almost immediately. He had such a lovely smile that it seemed almost like a crime to miss out on it, but we were burning daylight on finding his friend.

I led the way up the stairs to my apartment, which was settled in the back-right corner of the building on the right side of the hall. The view from my limited number of windows consisted of an alleyway, a fire escape I could wall scale to, and the tops of tourist shops. I'd handpicked this apartment for the sole reason that it was extremely difficult to shoot at me without renting some sort of hovercraft. Let's hear it for paranoia. Once we reached my apartment, I unlocked the door and went inside to make sure no one had tripped any of my anti-burglar systems, leaving Rogers to fend for himself in the hallway for a second.

"It's clear. You can come in," I called.

Rogers walked into the room and closed the door like everything he touched, including the floor, was made of glass. He was treating it with a reverence, clearly taking it to heart when I'd told him that this was my safe space and that I pretty much hated bringing him here. It won him major points in my book.

As safe spaces went, it wasn't much. It was a small, one-bedroom apartment with grotesque white walls that I'd been dying to paint ever since I'd moved in. I'd done the best I could with decorating, but I wasn't exactly Martha Stewart. A black couch with dark red pillows sat in the middle of my meager living room across from a small flat screen television. The television and DVD player were propped up on short dark wood entertainment center, an acoustic guitar carefully nestled in the corner made by the wood and the wall. A matching dark wood coffee table sat in between the television and the couch and was loaded down with entertainment magazines that I hadn't gotten around to throwing away. A kitchenette was off to the right of the door and had the essentials: a coffee maker, a sink, a fridge, a stove, minimal counter space, and a few cabinets and drawers. A semi-fancy dark wood shelving unit, complete with three drawers at the bottom, was pressed against the wall next to the kitchenette. It was covered in assorted knick-knacks that I'd collected over the years. The drawers were filled with books and DVDs. I'd purchased some framed paintings to give the walls the pop of color that they would never have otherwise had. They were mostly abstract, with bright colors that contrasted and complimented the décor beautifully. Okay, so maybe I was Martha Stewart, but something told me she wouldn't have chosen all abstract paintings. Oh well.

My room was the only part of the apartment that wasn't fancy in the least. That was okay, though, because it was the safest part of my safe haven and wasn't meant for guests like the rest of my apartment was. It was covered from floor to ceiling in pop culture and rock memorabilia, with books taking over my nightstand to the point that only a small corner was visible, and that was just so I didn't knock them over when I turned the lamp on and off. I was glad I had sprung for decent furniture, otherwise the nightstand would have broken in half by now. I didn't have room for a bookshelf, so books were stacked in tall piles in the corner by the bed. Shelves held up assorted geeky knickknacks and framed posters and autographs hung in an artful way on the walls. My queen-sized bed followed the same theme as the couch, only my comforter was dark red, and my sheets and pillows were black. A small closet was nestled into the right wall. The closet was my ultimate destination today, no matter how much I wanted it to be my bed.

"Have a seat" I said as I dropped my goodie bag just behind the couch. I slipped past Rogers to lock the door and turned back around to find that he hadn't moved. Instead, his eyes were taking in my home, and it made me feel naked, and not in the good way.

"Or not," I muttered to myself.

I moved past him to get to my bedroom, begrudgingly leaving the door open so I could keep an eye on him. I didn't want him looking into my sanctuary, but I also needed to see what he was doing. It wasn't like anyone could see him since my windows were covered with black-out curtains that kept the sun out and kept people from seeing into my apartment, but you never could tell how crafty assassins would get. They might rent out a firetruck and use the ladder to stage an assault just to spite the good guys, seeing as hovercrafts were too conspicuous. Maybe there was such a thing as too paranoid, but if there was, I didn't much care to know about it. Regardless of how paranoid I wasn't, we were in complete privacy. The moment I realized that, I started to feel awkward. I felt even more awkward having my bedroom door open and having my stuff on display.

I made quick work of grabbing clothes, both civilian comfort and undercover chic, as well as grabbing a custom-made holster I used for fancy dresses and skirts. I'd managed to stuff an elegant dress in my bag, just in case we got to have some Mr. Bond-type fun, but I doubted we would get to play craps in an upscale casino on this mission. For shame. There were some delightfully fun knives in my gym bag, so I tossed those and a couple of holsters in my duffel, too, tossing the open gym bag next to my laundry basket so it could breathe until I got back. Moving quickly, I slipped into my sparsely, yet pleasantly decorated black and white bathroom to grab my makeup bag and my go-bag of bathroom essentials, stopping for a moment to give myself a once over in the mirror. My straight black hair looked better than I thought it would, what with all my running around and whipping my head this way and that. My eyes, though, candy-apple green with gold around the iris and rimmed with thick, black lashes, looked a little too harried for my comfort. My lips were full, but in that Megan-Fox-pre-lip-injection way rather than the Angelina Jolie way, and looked downright pouty right now. Jesus, my subconscious had to get it together. I didn't have the luxury of pouting, not on my schedule. I zipped out of the bathroom and tossed my bathroom stuff on my pile of going-away crap.

Just as I zipped up my newly packed giant duffel bag, the only kind of travel bag any agent uses, I heard Rogers' voice rumble in from the other room. "These are interesting."

I hauled the monstrosity up and awkwardly waddle-walked into my living room to find Rogers standing in front of my shelving unit, staring at several clay figurines. His large, pale hand hovered just over the blue, opalescent tail of a mermaid, his fingers so curious to see of the texture was as smooth as it looked. Her skin was painted a mocha color, so lifelike that you'd think it'd be warm to the touch. Real hair, dark and curly with golden highlights, modestly hid small breasts. A seaweed crown woven with pearls and shells sat atop the mermaid's head, and impossibly green eyes stared out of a round, beautiful face.

Beside her was a handmade phoenix. The clay was a mix of different shades of orange, red, and yellow, and wasn't at all painted. It was meant to be more cutesy than realistic. The black beak screeched a cry to the ceiling, multihued wings spread open as if the bird were about to take flight. while five long, thin clay tail feathers curled around its feet. There were a couple more figures like those two scattered around the shelving unit, but those were the two that Rogers seemed to be focusing on. Probably because they were right next to each other. Lucky for me, it seemed that he'd bypassed looking in to my room. But of course, he would do that. Moral compass and all. It was just my luck that he'd picked the worst possible items in the room to focus on.

I set the bag down next to the pile behind the couch and stood next to the first Avenger. My arms crossed over my stomach as I, too, studied the figurines. Well, I pretended. I was much more focused on getting my throat to open back up and keep my body language from betraying me.

When I didn't say anything, Rogers added, "They're beautiful. Where'd you get them?"

"My sister made them for me," I stated, my eyes staying on the figurines. Oh good. My voice managed to not shake. "She was an art major, and those were some of her birthday gifts to me."

"She's talented," Rogers said.

I could feel the weight of his gaze on the side of my face. I looked up and found him giving me a genuine smile. Man, he really was a nice guy. It was almost unnerving. It said something about the people I hung out with that I found his kindness to be unnerving. Anyway, he was being nice, so I figured I could return the favor. I was a nice person. Sometimes.

"Thank you," I said with a smile, some of it real. "She'd flip her shit if she heard that coming from you."

His smile faltered and went from sincere to polite. Something told me he wasn't exactly happy about his celebrity status. Call it a hunch. Or he could see right through me.

"Is she a um…a fan?" he asked, seemingly struggling for a second to find the right word.

"Not necessarily," I shrugged, trying my best to not make it tight and awkward. "You're just kind of world-famous, and she'd flip her shit when even local talents gave her compliments on her work. She felt like she was that much closer to getting her big break when stuff like that would happen."

"Has she gotten her big break yet?" he asked.

"No," I replied, letting myself sound only a fraction of how disappointed I felt.

"Well, she shouldn't be too far from it if all of her art is this good," Rogers said.

He motioned toward the figurines as he spoke and offered me another genuine smile. I nodded and smiled back, not entirely sure what to say. He would find out soon, as soon as he read my file, so why was I lying to him? Maybe because it felt, for even a split second, like she was still in my life? I didn't know. All I knew was he was talking to me so I should respond. I went for the appreciative-agreeing route to his kindness, as it seemed like the best option.

"Yeah, she'll get there someday," I said. "Thanks, again."

"You're welcome."

I moved away from him, my arms still folded over my stomach. I forced them to my sides as I moved in to the kitchen. Open body language was the key to getting him to get along with me. Or, one of the keys, at least. He wouldn't trust me or like me if I seemed closed off. I mean, I was closed off, but I could at least not seem like it. We were getting along just fine right now, but if I shut him out or acted like I was, none of this would go very well.

I didn't have much time to ponder on how to get out of my own way when it came to getting Rogers to trust me more because a rapid knock sounded at my front door. My hand instantly lifted my shirt and went to the gun in my inner-pants holster in a knee jerk reaction that showed exactly how uncomfortable I was. My head swiveled to make sure that Rogers was okay, and I found that he, too, looked like he was ready to take on whoever was at the door. We didn't have to wait long to find out who it was. A soprano voice, thick with worry, called through the wood.

"Dahlia? Dahlia, are you in there? Are you alright, dear?"

"Shit," I whispered, with feeling.

As quietly as I could, I pulled the gun from its holster, padded over to the door, and looked through the peephole. It was my landlord. Thankfully, it didn't look like anyone was with her, and she definitely wasn't a good enough actress to fake it if someone was hunching and had a gun to her back. I put my gun back in the holster, fluttered my shirt around my waist to cover the butt of the gun better, and turned to Rogers. The tension eased out of his body bit by bit when he saw that I was no longer ready to fire through the door and asked me what was going on with his facial expressions alone. He was really good at that.

"We're dating," I mouthed at him.

His blue eyes widened in surprise and he mouthed back, "What?"

I threw a look over my shoulder at the door and quietly moved back toward Rogers, daring to get uncomfortably close to him so I could whisper low enough that my landlord wouldn't hear me. Looking up at him from that close was going to give me a crick in my neck if I wasn't careful, but it was a sacrifice I was willing to make. For several reasons. Most of which I refused to think about.

"Please," I said, putting all the desperation I had into that one word, flooding my green and gold eyes with my plea, "just do me a favor and pretend that we're dating. I will owe you big time, just please do this for me. Help me get her off of my back. I'll explain later, I promise, just please, help me out here."

I don't know if it was me saying please multiple times or the fact that I probably looked like a drowning woman in desperate need of help, but after a couple of heartbeats, he nodded.

"Okay," he said.

I had to catch myself from sagging against him in relief. My hands reached forward anyway to touch either side of his hard waist, a sock-melting grin spreading across my face, and I swear I saw his eyes widen again, his pupils dilating in the shadow we'd created. I didn't blame him. I'd gone from distant and moody to touching him and giddy in less than two seconds and all it took was him pretending to date me. Hell, even I was surprised by my mood swing. When you're close to one emotion, you're close to them all, I guess, but dammit, this was big! If he knew the whole story, he wouldn't be surprised at all.

"I cannot thank you enough for this," I whispered. "Just let me do the talking. If you have to say something, stick to half-truths because you're not technically lying. It's also easier to remember if she asks more questions. Okay?"

"What did I just get myself into?" he asked, ducking his head low so I could hear him better. It also put his face way closer to my face than I had intended. I dutifully ignored that, hard as it was, and smiled up at him, and I saw his eyes dilate again. It had to be the low light. Right? I opened my mouth to answer him when the rapid knocking turned into a frantic pounding.

"Dahlia?! Oh, Dahlia! Are you alright?! I'm going to call the police!"

Oh shit. "I'll be right there!"

I removed my fingers from their barely-there spot on Rogers' impossibly thin waist and carefully walked back over to the door, my hand going back to my gun over my shirt. You can never be too careful, right? Definitely. Unlocking the door, I opened it a crack to make sure she really was alone. She was, thank the gods, so I stepped back and let the harried older woman in.

Marcia Ferdinand was a slightly overweight woman in her seventies, her curly grey hair cut short and clearly styled with those old plastic rollers. Every time I saw her, she was in a clean pressed shirt and pair of slacks with nice yet cheap jewelry on. Today was no exception, only right now the curls looked a little limp and her blue shirt looked a little rumpled at the collar.

"Sorry about that, Mrs. Ferdinand," I said as she put a hand to her cheek as if to calm herself.

"I've told you, dear," she said, shaking her head free of worry now that she saw I was okay. "Call me Marcia."

"Sorry, Marcia. You know how I forget sometimes," I replied with an apologetic smile.

"With how much you work, dear, I don't blame you at all for forgetting," she said, patting my arm with a plump hand.

Now that'd she'd regained a bit of her composure, she apparently felt the need to talk. I knew she would. She always did.

"When I saw that black car parked in your spot, I got so worried," she said as she moved past me into my apartment. I closed and locked the door behind her, trying to not roll my eyes at her overprotectiveness. We'd done background checks on her and everyone else in the building. She was squeaky clean, but she was a nosy old broad and I didn't know how to get her to let us go without making her cry, because she was also very delicate. "You're not usually home so earl- Oh. Hello."

I turned from sliding in the chain lock to see Marcia stopped dead in her tracks five feet behind me, and I could almost hear the giant grin blooming on her face. I moved in front of her, placing myself not exactly between her and Rogers, but definitely in a position to get myself there as I was pretty sure she was ready to launch herself at him for a hug. Her growing smile somehow wasn't losing momentum and I was afraid her lips were about to touch her ears in a nightmare scenario that no one wanted to see.

"And who is this?" she asked, her sweet voice gaining a little lilt and a lot of curiosity.

"Marcia Ferdinand," I said, taking her elbow and gently pulling her forward so I could control where she did and didn't go, "this is my boyfriend Steve. Steve, this is Marcia, my landlord turned honorary grandmother."

Dammit, I should have come up with a fake name for him, but I was working on the fly and, to me, Rogers was his name. I'd be better at this later.

He stepped forward and held out a hand to Marcia. She graciously took it, exchanging little glances between me and him as she let her hand fall noodle-limp in his. I stepped next to Rogers to make it easier for her to gawk at us. I didn't want her hurting her neck.

"It's nice to meet you, Mrs. Ferdinand," he said, a charming smile gracing his lips.

"Marcia, please," she insisted. "It's nice to meet you too, Steve. Dahlia hasn't told me she's had any gentleman suitors."

"We've been trying to keep it under wraps for now," I explained. My hand went to his bicep in as loving a gesture as I could manage. He pulled his hand away from Marcia and smiled down at me, and it looked genuine, like he really did find me attractive. Wow, he was better at selling this than I was. I owed him a huge favor.

"Are you a cop, too?" Marcia asked him. "Do they make you wear those ridiculous new uniforms, too?"

She meant the catsuit the women occasionally trained in, which was completely impractical at every level if you asked me, especially if you had to use the bathroom. I definitely didn't blame her for thinking the uniform was ridiculous. I did blame her for being naïve enough to think that it was a cop uniform, even if I had told her it was for a special forces unit. But hey, as long as she believed me, she wouldn't be in danger. In the end, it all worked out.

He looked at her, eyes filled with good cheer as she moaned about the impracticality of my uniform. Damn, he was a good liar. Fuck half-truths, he could probably convince someone the sky was orange.

"I'm military," he replied.

"Oh," she said, as if that explained everything. "My husband was in the military. He was the same way. 'We have to keep it a secret for now, Marcia. Our families won't like this, Marcia. My military career is just starting, Marcia.' I felt like I was on the Brady Bunch!"

She let out a laugh at her own joke and I laughed with her. Poor Rogers didn't get it, so he didn't laugh. I knocked my ankle against his and he got the hint to fake it like a porn star. Well, maybe not like a porn star, but he knew that he had to at least fake it. He chuckled so it didn't sound forced.

"Yeah, we're just getting a feel for it for now, and then we'll let everyone know. Please keep this just between us, Marcia," I said, laughter still glinting in my eyes. "Don't even tell Bruce yet. I really don't want to jinx a good thing."

"I understand, dear. I won't tell a soul," she said. She sliced her hand through the air is if she were getting ready to make a solemn vow on her honor.

"Thank you," I said. "That really means a lot to us."

I smiled and rested my head on Rogers' shoulder, playing the part of the loving girlfriend with everything I had. It wasn't too intimate a gesture, or at least I hoped it wasn't, but judging by how the Captain's muscles suddenly tensed, I'd say he thought it was a little too intimate for his liking. I really didn't want to get too intimate with Rogers after knowing him for less than two hours. Hell, I was surprised he'd even agreed to do this for me seeing as he didn't know me from Adam, and I was even more surprised he was playing along so perfectly. Maybe he trusted me a little already? Or this was a test and he was seeing how far I was willing to drag him into the mud for my own personal gain. Or I was reading too much into shit.

Marcia's eyes scanned the room like they usually did. It was her way of trying to make sure everything was up to code. She did it to everyone and I appreciated the effort on her part, since It was part of her job, but it did make me slightly paranoid, like she was casing my apartment. She hadn't sprung any traps on me yet, though, so I tried to not think too much of it. Tried was the main word there. Finally, her eyes settled on the bags on the floor behind the couch.

"Are you going somewhere? Is that why you're home early? I was so worried…" she started.

"I'm okay, Marcia," I said, cutting her off before she could continue her rant about the mysterious black car in my spot. Marcia had a rule that only residents could park in their assigned spots and that guests absolutely must use the guest parking. There were no loopholes to the rule, not even carpooling. I didn't know why. The woman was just anal about her parking spots, apparently so much so that she watched them like a hawk, because I didn't expect her to be on top of us so quickly. "We're actually going on vacation and I had to come home early to pack."

"Oh, good," she said, calming down almost instantly. "Where are you two lovebirds off to?"

"We're taking a road trip to Tennessee. It's lovely there this time of year and I wanted to show Steve Cades Cove. He's a huge history buff."

"Oh, really?" Marcia asked, her grey eyes lighting up in her wrinkled face. "What era do you study most?"

"America between the early 1900s and World War II," Rogers answered.

"That is a fascinating time period," Marcia said. "I used to love those 1920s flapper dresses when I was younger. All of the beads made them look so elegant. Do you know much about the prohibition?"

I moved forward then. We were wasting valuable time and I wasn't sure how long I could ask Rogers to do this. It wasn't fair to subject him to an overbearing grandmother figure who desperately wanted her adopted grandkid to get hitched. My hands went to Marcia's shoulders and I carefully turned her toward the door.

"Now, now. Don't load the boyfriend down with questions, Marcia. You'll scare him away," I teased. I threw a glance over my shoulder at Rogers, one that held all sorts of heat, passion, and newly blossoming love before turning a tamed version of that same look to Marcia. "And I really like this one. A lot."

Was it just me or had the good Captain looked like he'd swallowed his own tongue and was trying to be discreet about it before I'd turned away? It had to be just me. Had I eaten yet today? I could be having hunger hallucinations. Were those a thing? Let's pretend they were.

"Of course. How rude of me. I'll leave you two alone to get ready for your trip," she said. She turned out of my hands as she unlocked the door. "It was nice to meet you, Steve. You have a wonderful young woman on your hands here."

"I'm starting to get that feeling, Marcia," Rogers said, startling me. It took everything I had to not snap my head back around and stare at him. Instead I kept looking forward as Marcia exited my apartment and stood in front of the doorway.

"I want an invitation to the wedding," she said through the narrowing crack.

I gave her a warm, yet slightly annoyed smile that told her she knew better and said, "Goodbye, Marcia."

The door clicked closed and I locked it once again. I stood by the door, holding my breath as I waited for her footsteps to recede. When she was far enough away, I slumped against the wood and let out a heavy sigh.

"I owe you, big time," I said without turning around. "You just saved me at least six months of nagging."

"Find Bucky and we'll call it even," Rogers said, his tone back to normal. He bounced back fast, but I guess you had to when things were constantly being thrown at you, literally and figuratively. I guess having target-lock on Barnes also helped. Speaking of Barnes, what did he just say?!

I turned to stare at him. Me finding his missing best friend was akin to him helping me get an old woman off of my back? Somehow, I seriously doubted that.

"Something tells me I'll owe you after I find him," I said, narrowing my eyes suspiciously. The next thought I had came spilling from my mouth without running it past my brain first. "Why'd you agree to help me?"

Great, Dani. Question his reasons for doing good things. That'll make him like you more, and it definitely won't make him question whether or not to help you in the future. Moron. Rogers just looked at me and shrugged his massive shoulders. I waited for the seams to pop, but by some feat of magic, they didn't. Kind of disappointing, but on the other hand, this was weird enough already and I didn't need him changing shirts in my apartment.

"You needed help, and I was here to help you. It's what I do. It's what I've always done," he replied.

"Ah. Ask a stupid question," I said.

I stood there at my door, staring up at him and suddenly feeling incredibly awkward. That was happening too frequently for my liking, that awkwardness shit. Had I really just asked him to do that for me? Had I really played the cutesy girlfriend? Had I actually kind of liked it a little? Unfortunately, yes to all of the above. Rogers must have felt that awkwardness too because he shifted uncomfortably on his feet. His hands went to his belt as his eyes looked over the rest of my apartment. And then he looked at me and said something completely unexpected.

"Dahlia?"

I couldn't help it. I laughed. The tension had been too strong and the relief too great. Oddly enough, or perhaps not so oddly at all, I felt a little closer to him after this. Maybe it was a damsel-in-distress complex grabbing hold of me, but he'd just saved my ass by letting me flirt with him, he was being nice, and he was making jokes. I felt like maybe I could ease up on my spines a little, even if it was really hard to control some of them.

"Yeah," I nodded. "Dahlia Black. It's my super cool fake persona that helped me get this apartment."

"Dahlia has far more patience than Dani does," Rogers teased.

"Only because neither of them want to get kicked out of their apartment for being a bitch," I said with a smile. I jabbed my thumb behind me toward the closed door and asked, "Anyway, you ready to hit the road?"

"That sounds like a good plan. The sooner we find Bucky, the sooner you can start searching for a real boyfriend," Rogers said, smiling at me as he bent to pick up his duffels.

"Nah," I said, walking over to grab my bags as well, gathering the handles as I spoke. "Most men can't handle me. You can only be so blunt with someone before they get pissed and leave."

"McIntosh seems to like you," Rogers pointed out.

"McIntosh is one in a billion and I still piss him off regularly. You men are so fragile," I joked, straightening up.

Rogers gave me one of those "oh, really?" looks and I raised my eyebrows at him in challenge, a smirk quirking up one side of my mouth.

"I could've handled my landlord better than that," he said.

"Really? Is your landlord also an overbearing old woman in her seventies?" I asked. I gasped in fake, overexaggerated realization, my eyes going wide as I gaped up at him. "Captain! Are you looking to date women in your age range? After we already planned to go to Tennessee? You might as well have put a ring on it and walked me over the threshold but now you're saying you're looking elsewhere?"

"Okay," he said in good-natured acquiescence, looking away in surrender.

"Ohhohoho, you caved fast! I was expecting more of a fight, but damn, sir!" I laughed. Before he could even finish giving me the look of mild annoyance that people usually gave me after I teased them, I turned around and added "Okay, I've changed my mind. This is gonna be a fun trip! Let's go!"


	3. Winding Roads

I sat, once again, in the passenger seat of the SUV with the open bag from Fury on my lap. As soon as I'd buckled up, I'd regretted, once again, that I hadn't changed my clothes. Granted, we'd had quite the interruption with Mrs. Ferdinand and there was no way I was going to change my clothes with my bedroom door open, but I was easily sidetracked anyway when it came to missions, so much so that sometimes I forgot to eat. Here's hoping that wouldn't happen this time around. I was going to need energy if I was going to be protecting Captain Rogers, and coffee could only get me so far. And he really didn't need me to be a jittery mess.

I picked up one of the file folders, finding it to be much thinner than expected for such a high stakes mission. I tilted the second file folder up a bit, just enough to see the side, and found it significantly thicker. The third folder was caught somewhere between the first and the second, not too thick, not too thin. It was just right. It could have been in the Goldilocks story, if Goldilocks was a spy and not a psycho that liked breaking and entering and making herself at home in her victim's house. On second thought, maybe she was a spy.

"Did you read the file on Barnes before we left?" I asked as I flipped open the smallest folder. Wouldn't you know it? It was Barnes' file, complete with his personal backstory, military history, and everything we had on his whereabouts as The Winter Soldier up until now.

"Yeah," Rogers said. "He was last seen buying food in a convenience store in Pittsburg."

"Well, that's sloppy of him. Not to mention unhealthy."

I glanced up, looking at the screen built in to the dashboard, and saw that Rogers had, in fact, punched the address of a place in Pittsburg into the GPS. Almost as soon as I realized that, the annoying little thing spoke, telling him to take a right in half a mile.

"Maybe he's ready to be found," Rogers said, hope painfully clear in his voice.

I held back my comment that he could have at least picked an upscale Walmart to be seen in and not some grubby gas station. Something about how utterly genuine he sounded told me he wouldn't appreciate my humor. So I went with something less ill-timed and douchey.

"It's a possibility. Someone on the run that long is going to know you don't go into places that are well known for having video surveillance. If it is true, he should be popping up more," I said. I reached in to the bag, pulling the folders and the laptop out. The folders went on my lap, the computer went on top of the folders, and the bag went in the footwell. I opened the laptop and powered it up, adding, "I'll do a facial recognition scan of the cameras in the surrounding area to see if he shows up again."

While I waited for the computer to boot up, I pulled the thickest file folder out from under it, curious to see who it belonged to. Surprisingly yet unsurprisingly, it belonged to Captain Rogers. Unsurprising because he was a very accomplished military man, and surprising because I didn't know why Fury would put his file in there. Maybe Fury needed me to know about Rogers as much as he needed the Captain to know about me? Sure. Let's go with that.

I already knew at least a portion of what was in his file, but then again, everyone did. He was born July 4th, 1918 to Irish immigrants, Sarah and Joseph Rogers. Joseph died in World War I and Sarah died of tuberculosis when Rogers was eighteen. He'd had a list of ailments as long as my arm and it was a miracle a stiff breeze hadn't snapped him in half before Dr. Erskine had recruited him for Project Rebirth when he was twenty-four. He went into the ice just before he turned twenty-seven and was now the sexiest ninety-seven-year-old in history, which I felt super weird thinking about. Although I guess he was biologically thirty-two, so I shouldn't feel too weird about it. And if people visited his exhibit at the Smithsonian, which I was certain at least half of America had, they'd know at least some of his military exploits.

Some meaning about a quarter. This file was chock full of information on what he'd done in his few years with the Howling Commandoes and Agent Peggy Carter, the good, the bad, and the ugly. I hadn't expected the ugly. At least not from him. He was America's Boy Scout, the ultimate testament to morality and goodness, and here I was reading that he'd been complicit in some shady war-time activities. I guess I probably should have expected it, though. A lot of commanders had done some uncouth things during the war, and he'd been dealing with a different kind of crazy, the kind with weapons that could vaporize people. He'd probably still been a damn moral compass, but in times of trouble, sometimes that compass has to shift a little to stay alive and keep others from dying.

After a few very long minutes had passed, I realized the laptop screen had gone back to black, so I closed the file and stuffed it between my hip and the center console. The reading could wait. I swiped my finger across the mouse pad to wake the computer up and logged in so I could finally start keying in the code for the recognition scan. If I wanted to be a tech savvy companion, I had better start living up to the "tech savvy" part.

"Is that your file?" Rogers asked suddenly. He'd been so quiet, I'd almost forgotten he was there. Almost. Him driving and my years of training had kept him on the fringes of my mental periphery.

"It's yours," I replied, sounding distracted as I typed in a command. A niggling curiosity plinked through my brain as I hit enter, and I looked at him. He was watching the road like a good driver. "You haven't read my file yet?"

"No. I didn't have time before we left the base," he said.

Jesus, I was dense sometimes. Of course, he hadn't read it yet. Otherwise he would have known about… But then why would he think I was I reading my own file? Did he think I needed to see what some random dude wrote about me? I didn't. I'd lived it. That was enough for me.

"Right," I said, looking back at the screen. "Let's pretend I didn't forget about that."

"Consider it forgotten," he replied, a bare hint of a smile in his tone. When he spoke again half a second later, the smile was completely gone. "Is there anything about Bucky in my file?"

Did he mean military stuff or personal relationship stuff? I flicked my eyes towards him, finding his profile rife with concern and determination. He was worried nothing was there, worried something was, worried there wasn't enough, and he was damn well going to fix whatever was wrong with that file here and now.

"That I saw, only his involvement with the Howling Commandoes. I was only able to skim it, though, so who knows what's truly in there," I answered, turning back to my screen once again. I hoped that answer would be enough to tell him there was nothing to worry about and nothing to fix. It wasn't.

"He's a good man," Rogers said.

"For you to be friends with him, he has to be," I said. "It's whether or not he's still the man you knew that's the question."

"He is," he said. He sounded so sure of himself, so certain, that I was willing to bet he'd stake his life on it. Hell, he already had.

"Because he saved you?" I asked.

"Yes," was the simple reply.

"And if he's not?"

"I'll help him remember."

"And if you can't?"

He didn't say anything then, and the silence that filled the car was louder than any scream. I looked at him in the flashing shadows of the trees. His jaw was tense and unmoving, his gaze intent on the road ahead of him but clearly barely seeing it through the haze of his own thoughts. I didn't know the Captain well, or at all, for that matter, but I knew for certain that he wouldn't kill his friend and he'd do everything in his power to keep me from killing Barnes, even if he had gone back to the dark side. But there was something else in that silence, something that said him staking his life on his friend being truly rehabilitated was a barely-pretty dress on an ugly truth he didn't want to acknowledge.

"Captain," I said gently, "I know you don't like it, but-"

"He's been my friend since I was a kid," he interrupted. "He kept me alive through more things than I had any right to survive. It didn't matter what back alley I got myself cornered into or how many times I had to ask him for money for medicine that I couldn't afford. He would always help me out. He went above and beyond for me during the war, and it sent him off the side of a mountain. I don't care what I have to do. I'm going to help him."

Shit. I got it now. Barnes wasn't just a friend; he was family, and Captain Rogers blamed himself for the position his family was now in. The guilt ran far deeper than mere words. It was just behind his eyes, and in the way he held his shoulders and gripped the steering wheel. It didn't matter how many people told him it wasn't his fault, how many times people tried to point out how illogical his argument was, a part of him felt guilty. A lot of him just wanted his friend back and didn't want to grieve him again. Gods, what would I do if I were in his position? If I knew my loved one had been brainwashed and manipulated into murder and needed my help? If I could have someone back and know I didn't have to grieve them? Sweet mercy, I would burn the world down without a second thought.

"Okay," I said, softly, then firmly added, "Okay. But I reserve every right to knock him out if he gets out of control."

"Just don't kill him," he replied, some of the intensity seeping out of his tone now that he knew I was at least partially on his side.

"Nah, I'll save that for the bad guys."

Tension flowed out of him like water down a mountain stream, relaxing his shoulders until I realized he'd almost had them around his ears. His hands on the steering wheel relaxed and I heard the leather creaking in relief. He spared a quick, grateful glance at me before settling his eyes back on the road.

"Thank you."

"I've never been thanked for telling someone I'd coldcock their friend before," I joked, trying to soothe his anxieties like he'd done for me. "But seriously, it's no problem. If you say he's a good guy and that he's broken free of Hydra's control, then I trust you. Besides, I can't execute a good man for something Hydra mindfucked him into doing when he's not doing it anymore."

And Hydra had mindfucked him. I'd been cavalier about it earlier but that was my attitude half the time and I wasn't always super stoked to think about Hydra's penchant for brainwashing people, be it through violent means or just being really good at selling their bullshit.

"Not everyone thinks the way you do," Rogers said.

"Because not everyone is me," I replied, typing more commands into the computer.

We sat in silence for a while after that, the only noise the sound of my fingers dancing across the keyboard in a rapid, clicking staccato. It reminded me of someone in tap shoes losing their balance repeatedly, and I couldn't help but crack a little smile at the image of some poor guy falling all over himself in the middle of a dance hall. It was very Charlie Chaplin.

Out of nowhere, Rogers asked, "How long have you worked for Fury?"

"Since I was twenty," I replied, my eyes not moving away from the screen this time. "I worked for S.H.I.E.L.D. before it went to shit."

"You started earlier than I did," he said, sounding slightly impressed.

"Yeah, well, it was either that or more college, and I'd had my fill of sorority bitches and frat dicks fucking off around me while I tried to work," I said. I paused, abruptly remembering that Rogers was not my friend nor was he a regular charge, that he was my superior, and that I should probably watch my language around him. "Sorry, sir. I tend to have a bit of a sailor's mouth off-duty and my lips seem to think I've clocked out."

"It's okay," Rogers said, smiling. "I'm not going to write you up for it."

"Thanks," I replied, giving him a half-smile in return.

"How did you join S.H.I.E.L.D.?" he asked, putting our conversation back on the rails.

"Fury recruited me after I went to join the police academy and offered me something better," I replied. "He said I would be wasting my talents as a cop and that he had something better for me."

"What was Fury doing at a police academy?" Rogers asked.

"He said he was visiting someone in the building, but I think we both know he was doing stealth recruiting."

"What made him pick you?"

"He said it was the way I looked at the room and moved through it. He said it made him think I was smart and already had tools under my belt that would make me better equipped for a different position at a better office. I told him to say more and I signed up."

"What tools were those?"

"I was already paranoid, and I'd already had a lot of hours of martial arts training under my belt," I said, matter-of-factly. I finished the last string of commands, hit enter, and let the program start analyzing every face on every camera across east Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey.

"Good tools to have," he replied, a shadow of a smile falling over his lips.

"Yes, sir, they are," I said, shifting the laptop a little so it would be more comfortable to hold.

"You can call me Steve," he said.

There it was. I knew it was going to come back. I didn't think it would be so soon, but here we were.

"I can, but I won't," I replied.

"Why not?" he asked, sounding genuinely curious.

"Why do you want me to?" I countered, sounding combative in comparison.

"I asked you first. You tell me, I'll tell you," he responded. Somehow, he managed to sound like a cultured, level-headed adult when he said that. I'd have sounded like a petulant tween.

I somehow managed to stifle the sigh building in my chest, which would absolutely make me sound like a petulant tween if I let it out, and said, "You're my superior. It would feel unprofessional to call you by anything other than your rank or last name. It would also feel really weird."

"I take it we're not going on that trip to Tennessee, then?" he asked, taking his eyes off of the road for a split second to give me a smile. "It would feel weird, right?"

I couldn't help it. I smiled back. "Oh, we're still going, but I'll be calling you Rogers the entire time."

"Agent Ryan," he started, his smile disintegrating, "we're going to be spending a lot of time together, and it would be easier on both of us if we dropped the last name and rank and just called each other by our given names."

"You spent a lot of time with your former superiors, and I doubt you ever called them by their first names," I pointed out.

"This is a very different situation," Rogers pointed out. "What would happen if you accidentally called me Captain at the wrong moment, or I called you Agent at the wrong moment?"

"I would hope we're both good enough at our jobs to not make those kinds of amateur mistakes," I argued.

"Amateur or not, mistakes happen, and we have to prepare for them," he countered.

"By calling each other by our first names?" I asked, incredulously.

"Yes," he replied, not a hint of teasing in his voice.

I looked at him, trying to see if he was serious or if he was pulling my leg with the best deadpan routine the world had ever seen, and found that he was looking at the road, earnestly awaiting my response. But why? It was the easiest thing in the world to not fuck up. Maybe, just maybe me calling him Rogers would raise someone's eyebrow, but it was a common last name. And I would never be so stupid as to call him Captain in public.

"I don't buy it," I said. I pulled the thinnest file folder out from under the laptop and flipped it open just as Rogers breathed a heavy sigh of what had to be frustration out of his nose.

"We're going to be equals on this, too," he added. "I'm your superior on the base, but if I want you to keep me alive like you're supposed to, I have to listen to what you say. We're going to be taking orders from each other, like it or not."

"Then we can equally call each other by our surnames," I argued, not really seeing the pages in front of me.

"What can I do to get you to use my first name?" he asked.

Did he mean outside of ordering me to? Good question. I thought for a moment, pushing my lips out into a bad case of duck lips, and said the first stupid and impossible thing that came to mind.

"Put a ring on it and I'll call you by your first name," I joked.

"Give me your hand," he said, almost immediately.

There was no way in hell that man had a ring on him. I looked up at him, surprise and apprehension so clear on my face that he could have read me like a book from across a room.

"What? No," I said, leaning into the passenger side door. My face had shifted from surprise to making sure he knew I thought he was flat out crazy.

One large hand let go of the steering wheel and extended toward me, his eyes never leaving the road.

"Come on. Give me your hand," he said again. He moved his fingers in that "hand it over" motion you gave to ornery children and friends.

He wasn't going to let this go. Goddammit, why did he have to be stubborn?! But of course, he was stubborn. It was how he'd gotten accepted into the Army in the first place, and now it looked like he'd set his sights on this first-name business and wasn't going to let it go because he thought he was right. Gods, that was infuriating. Is this what it was like to be friends with me?

With a sigh, I relented, placing my small, pale hand in his much larger, slightly tanner one. His hand was warm and slightly sweaty from holding on to the steering wheel, and it was as impressively solid as the rest of him. I'd only touched him a handful of times, but I don't think I'd ever be able to get over just how solid and warm he was, even if I got to touch him all day, every day.

He flipped my hand in his until my thumb was pointing toward the roof of the car. I wanted to ask him what the hell he was doing, but I knew I was going to find out sooner rather than later. Why waste words when you didn't have to? He moved my hand toward the steering wheel, and I saw him flick his eyes down so he could make sure he was leading me to the right place. That place happened to be the ignition and the keys therein. He slid my ring finger in to the key ring and let me go.

"There. I put a ring on it. Now call me Steve," he said.

I had to give him points for not sounding smug, and I had to give myself points for not slugging his leg as I pulled my hand back. It took me trying to open my mouth to speak to find that my jaw had dropped into my lap. I was honestly surprised that my chin hadn't punched a hole in the bottom of the car and started scraping pavement.

"You sneaky motherf-mmm," I said, pursing my lips closed so I didn't insult a superior, my eyes wide and locked on his profile.

He smiled then, but didn't look at me. "You never said what kind of ring it had to be."

"Goddammit. You're supposed to be a Gryffindor, not a Slytherin," I griped.

The smile faltered and turned in to a confused frown. "What?" he asked.

Shit. Right. He'd only had a few years to catch up on seventy years of pop culture. Eh, I'd educate him later.

"It's from the Harry Potter series," I replied. My tongue stumbled over itself for half a second before adding, "In simple, non-nerdy terms, you're supposed to be courageous, not cunning."

"Why can't I be both?" he asked, sounding genuinely curious.

"You can, but…shit, I really can't explain it until you've seen the movies or read the books," I said, sounding slightly exasperated. I really hoped he knew that I was upset with myself for bringing up a concept he knew nothing about that would require explanation from me.

"Try."

I sighed and bit my bottom lip in thought. How could I explain this so simplistically that he wouldn't question it further? Was that even possible? Probably not. He seemed too smart and too curious to let things go easily. Dammit.

"Think of it this way. A Gryffindor will break the rules; a Slytherin will find a way around them," I finally said.

"You can't do both?" Rogers, oh sorry, Steve, asked.

"You can, but it's which tactic you value more that defines which one you are. You can be both brave like a Gryffindor and manipulative like a Slytherin, but simply answering a question like would you kick down a door or pretend you're an important figure to get someone to let you inside would tell you which one you are," I explained. I paused for a moment, then added, "Granted everyone has traits from each of the four houses in them, and this isn't a legitimate psychological test so it's rife with issues, but it's also fake, so it kind of means nothing beyond being fun to speculate about."

The fact that it was fake made me wonder why we were spending so much time on it, but he did need to learn more about pop culture so I guess I couldn't blame him for being curious about me spouting random shit from some series he knew nothing about. And he was curious. I watched a slew of questions dance over his face before he finally settled on one, the one that hopefully wouldn't create fifty more questions.

"So you think I'm a Gryffindor then?" he asked.

"Yes," I replied. "Even with that sneaky Slytherin shit you just pulled. You would much rather kick in the door than talk your way through it."

"You sound very sure of yourself," he said with a smile.

"I am."

"Why?"

"Because I read your file," I replied, my tone just shy of deadpan, with only the slightest hint of teasing to it.

"Just how much is in that file, anyway?" he asked, a smile clear in his voice.

"Did you really visit a brothel in London?" I asked. That wasn't in there, but he didn't know that.

Steve looked between me and the road, his eyes wide with shock, utter disbelief falling over his features.

"That is not in my file," he said. "I never did that."

"Hmmm," I hummed, sounding unconvinced as I turned back to the smallest file we had, still held open in my lap. "Your file must've been mixed with someone else's."

I could feel him give me the side-eye of humored irritation and grinned, big enough for him to see that I was pleased with myself. He may have won the name-game, the little shit, but I was an expert in annoying people and I'd be damned if he wasn't going to fall victim to my teasing just like everyone else, especially since he'd opened that can of worms himself by making this way more personal than it had to be. Oh yeah. He was going to regret this.

My grin quickly faded as I concentrated on reading Barnes' file. While Rogers…Steve, had a lot of early-life personal information in his file, Barnes did not. I guess it was because it wasn't seen as being as important, but it was still odd. His military exploits were well-documented, including his time before the Howling Commandoes and his statements on Hydra's experiments in the 1940's. We didn't have a lot on him as The Winter Soldier, though, as it seemed like Hydra wasn't super keen on keeping their shit in the S.H.I.E.L.D. system when it came to his murder sprees, and we had even less on his trail since he'd pulled Rogers… fuck, Steve, from the river nearly a year and a half ago. Speaking of Steve, why was he so worried about what was in his file regarding Barnes when I had all of this? Was he worried I would judge Barnes based solely on what he'd had to do during the war and what Hydra had forced him to do in the decades since? Eh, probably.

"How much is in your file?" he asked into the silence.

Wow, he really knew how to slice the jugular of the already dying mood, didn't he?

"Less than what's in yours," I replied. I tried to sound nonchalant, and I think I did pretty well except for that ever so slight threatening tone that said to drop it. But he wouldn't, he couldn't, and I knew it. At least he wasn't asking me what was in it.

"If you're worried I'm going to judge you because of what's in it-" he started.

"I'm not worried you will," I said, matter-of-factly. "I know you will. I've done some fucked up things."

"We all have," he replied.

I thought back to his folder, to what the pages had said he'd had to do in the war so he could keep people safe. But his story was different from mine, and he'd find that out soon enough. I did regret some of the things I'd done, wished it could have had a happier ending, a less bloody one, but I would do it over again if I had to. Other things I didn't regret, and if I could, I'd gladly step in a time machine so I could do them all over again. He would understand the former. He'd lived the former. He would never understand the latter, and he would never condone it. He was too good a person for it. What worried me was whether or not he would trust me to hand him a bottle of water after he read what I'd done, let alone let me protect him. Either way, I was going to have to live with it.

Nevertheless, I said, "True."

This day was slowly swinging back in the direction of sucking and I wished it wouldn't.

"So," he said, softly, almost carefully as he changed the subject. He was holding true to his word that he wouldn't push the subject, but I think something in my reaction, something on my face, made him understand just how much I hated thinking about what was between those manila flaps. My little show at the base told him some my disdain, sure, but something about this conversation drove it home and I wasn't about to ask what it was. Whatever the case, it seemed he didn't want me thinking about my file anymore. Bless his gigantic heart.

"What are you?" he continued.

I frowned at him, narrowing my eyes in confusion. Did he mean besides an emotional wreck? "What do you mean?"

"Are you a Gryffindor or a Slytherin?" he asked.

"Oh," I said, the corners of my lips turning into a smile as I let out a soft breath. This change of pace was making my head spin, but I guess this was what you did when you were trying to get to know people. You threw them for a bunch of loops. "I'm a Slytherin."

"Does that mean you'll talk open doors for me?" he joked, trying to make the air in the car light and breezy rather than the heavy blanket it had started to become. I appreciated the effort. I really needed to get over my shit if I was going to be able to do my job. Was that why Fury had assigned me this case? So I could stop being such a fucking crybaby?

"You'd probably break a window five seconds after I knocked," I quipped.

Steve let out a heartfelt chuckle, one that told me he probably would do exactly that, and I couldn't help but feel better. This entire situation was a tad too mercurial, with me trying to be a professional and failing miserably in every way, and with Steve trying to get me out of my strict shell while he maintained his own boundaries and probably didn't trust me any farther than a squirrel could throw me. I would have said than he could throw me, but he could easily bench press a semi-truck. He could throw a human body pretty damn far.

"It's very Gryffindor to deviate from a plan like that if it suits their needs," I added.

"Then you wouldn't be surprised if I told you I was going to deviate from the Tennessee plan?" he asked.

It was nice to know we already had an inside joke. It gave me a bit of hope for the future. You know, if I got my head out of my ass.

"It would surprise me if you didn't, actually," I replied.

I clicked back to the surveillance footage to see if I'd gotten any hits yet and found absolutely none. Unsurprising, but still disappointing. I wanted this done and over quickly, but it wasn't going to end in the few hours we were going to be on the road, and it certainly wasn't going to end in the one we'd already been on it.

It suddenly dawned on me that we were going to need a place to stay while we searched for Barnes, you know, since this wasn't going to be a quick job like I wanted. I dug out one of the disposable phones and a fake ID while I pulled up a new tab for a Google search. I looked at the ID I'd dug out, for a Victoria Johnson, and resumed my search for a hotel near the convenience store where Barnes was last seen.

"What are you doing?" Steve asked, flicking his eyes to me.

"I'm looking for a hotel for us to stay in," I replied. "If I can find one near where Barnes was last seen, we might have an advantage."

I found a good hotel and decided to spring for a room that was a tad more expensive. Or a lot more expensive, depending on what they had. I dialed the number to the hotel and waited for an answer.

"Thank you for calling Hyatt Place Hotel. This is Rebecca speaking. How may I help you?" a chipper female answered.

I went through the motions of asking if they had rooms available and requested a room with twin beds that was on a higher floor. I was told that they didn't have twin beds, but they did have rooms with two queen beds and a sofa bed. I booked one of those and made sure it was on one of their highest floors. Just like with my apartment, it was much harder to snipe people if you were up high and they were down low. Not impossible, but harder. It would make a fast getaway a little tougher, but I could work with that. I gave her an approximate time that we would be there, and she told me our room should be ready by the time we rolled into the parking lot. Hooray.

Once I hung up the phone, I filled Steve in on the details and changed the address on the GPS.

"A sofa bed?" he asked.

"Yeah. A sofa that turns in to a bed and then back in to a sofa," I replied, explaining as if he were stupid enough to not know or be able to figure out what a sofa bed was. I knew he was really asking why we needed a sofa bed but, whatever. The words were already out of my mouth and they weren't going back in. "Once we find Barnes, you two can take the queens and I'll take the sofa bed."

"No, I will be taking the sofa bed. You will be taking one of the queens," Steve argued.

"No, I won't," I said. "The sofa bed is closer to the door, whereas the beds are closer to a window that is six stories up. I'm your bodyguard. I take the sofa bed. Besides, with how big you are, you'd break the damn thing in half."

Steve laughed at that. Hey, at least I was still funny. I was half afraid I'd lost my touch.

"If I didn't break the barracks, I won't break a sofa bed," he said, that hint of laughter still clinging to his tone.

"Well, I don't want to risk it, seeing as how someone would still have to sleep on it even if it was broken. I take the sofa bed once we find Barnes. And I take the bed closest to the door," I said.

"Are these orders?" Steve asked.

I looked at him. Like a good boy, he still had his eyes on the road. His face was still soft from laughing, but I could see just from looking at the profile of one eye that he was getting ready to turn hard and stubborn. Too bad for him, I was harder and more stubborn than he would ever be. Hopefully. I mentally shrugged to myself and stared out of the windshield.

"They kind of have to be," I replied. "Like you said earlier, my job is to protect you, and if I have to tell you how it's going to be in order to protect you, then that's what I'll do. Trust me, bossing you around isn't my idea of a fun time."

"It isn't?" he asked incredulously.

I smirked and shifted a little in my seat, resting my elbow on the window ledge of the door and scooting my legs toward the center console.

"Maybe a little bit, but it still feels weird," I replied.

"Like calling me Steve feels weird?"

"Yeah. Kinda like that. I mean, you're…you. You don't need someone to boss you around, and you sure as shit don't need a bodyguard. This entire situation is weird."

"Yeah," Steve agreed, looking over at me. "Yeah, it is."

I glanced at him, catching his breathtaking blue eyes with my impossibly green and gold ones, and knew that being his bodyguard would be the easiest job of my life. It wasn't just that he was super-human strong and incredibly smart; it was that I knew he wouldn't put me in danger if he didn't have to. Or maybe he would. I didn't know. There was something about him that just drew me in and made me trust him more, made me think that he would do everything in his power to keep me safe while I did the same for him. If I didn't know any better, I'd have said it was a side effect of the serum or that he had telepathic abilities and could alter peoples' wills to suit his own needs. Unfortunately for me, I think the pull was all him. It was all morality, kind-heartedness, and iron will that drew me to him, that made me want to fight for him. I knew with everything I had that he needed to survive, because he would make this shit hole of a world a much better place if we only gave him the resources. It was a cause I would gladly die for. Of course, some of that pull may have been purely sexual because that serum had granted him physical perfection and he looked damn good, but I'd never been willing to fight for lust, let alone die for it. I'd fuck for lust, but that was about it.

With that last thought, I turned my eyes back to the road and found a goddamn deer standing in our path.

"Steve!" I shouted.

I flung my hands up as if I could stop the deer from flying through the windshield. As I heard Steve's sharp intake of breath, it dawned on me that I could. Goddamn, I was an idiot sometimes.

The world slowed down until it felt like I could see a fly beat its wings, adrenaline making my vision so crystalline it was almost painfully sharp. I knew that Steve's reaction time was incredible, super-human, but I also knew that we were too close for him to hit the brakes and have us stop before we crashed in to the deer. We were just going too fast. A thousand ideas ran through my head as to what I could do.

There was a chance it would bolt, but the phrase deer-in-the-headlights didn't mean that someone got moving quickly so I wasn't going to put any of my money on the animal booking it into the woods. I could nudge it with my power, but it might lose its little deer mind and run back in front of our car. No, the best thing to do was grab the stupid thing and raise it well above the hood of our car, otherwise this mission might very well be over before it even started. I just hoped its little deer heart could handle the excitement.

I sent out tendrils of my power, wrapping it around the deer just as I felt Steve slam the pedal into the floorboard, and lifted it up to watch its gangly legs kick wildly, its hooves trying to gain purchase on open air. When we finally screeched to a stop, the poor deer's hooves were frantically waving mere inches above the top of the windshield. I carefully set the deer down on my side of the car, hoping that it wouldn't keel over from a heart attack the second I did, and gratefully watched it as it bolted into the woods, hopefully going off to tell its deer friends how it will never cross the black river again. Please never cross the black river again, little deer.

As I watched the animal disappear into the woods, Steve's very relieved yet somehow still worried voice came from behind me.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah," I replied. I turned to look at him, finding him half-turned toward me, his gaze steady on the tree line, probably making sure that the deer wasn't going to run back the other direction to side-swipe us. "Yeah, I'm good. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm okay," he replied, his eyes turning to me. They flicked down before his face flooded with concern. "Are you sure you're okay?"

That was a weird question. Hadn't I just said I was fine? I pinched my eyebrows at him in a subtle frown, puzzled. "Yeah, why?"

He raised his eyebrows and silently nodded at the dashboard in front of me. I frowned harder, my eyebrows knitting together so hard I could feel a headache coming on, and looked in front of me. I wasn't impaled or something, was I? No, he'd be freaking out way more if my body had gone the way of Vlad the Impaler. I looked at the dashboard, hoping nothing red was splotched on the hard plastic, and found my hands clinging to the glove compartment so hard my knuckles were white.

"Oh," I muttered, shocked. I unkinked my hands from the spot they'd clawed themselves onto and found the joints already stiff and added a very soft, "Well, that happened."

I didn't even remember catching myself or lifting my legs to keep the laptop from crashing into the footwell. Jesus, this whole lack-of-control thing had me wound tighter than I thought. Then again, maybe it was just the whole being-a-passenger-in-a-car thing, since I wasn't the biggest fan of that ever since Fury's incident and I was a control freak on my best days, and no I didn't want to go to therapy for it, Mom.

"I'm good," I said louder. "Deer showing up in the middle of the road is just a little nerve-racking. It's been a bit of a fear of mine since moving out here."

"Really?" Steve asked. The curiosity sounded real, but there was the tiniest hint of teasing to it even though we had literally almost slammed head-first into one of the damn things. Either he was trying to make me feel better or be was being city-boy ignorant as to how much damage deer could do to a car. I was betting on the former, as "ignorant" was not a word I would use to describe Captain Rogers.

"Hey, deer are dangerous, okay?" I argued. "And where did you learn how to drive, anyway? An empty parking lot? What was that?"

"London in 1944," Steve said as he eased off the brake. He flashed me a half smile, keeping his eyes on the road this time. "Not a lot of deer around there. Or Nazi Germany."

"Well aren't you just full of excuses?" I shot back.

He chuckled softly. "Just a few. What's so dangerous about deer, anyway?"

"You mean besides their ever-present need to throw their stupid deer bodies through windshields?" I scoffed.

He laughed at that, the humor lighting up his face all the brighter after the stress from the near-miss, and I swear I felt the last dregs of tension evaporate from the car, and I couldn't help but chuckle too. Gods help me, his smile was contagious, and I needed a laugh. I'd had plenty of close calls, but none had been quite like that. Apparently, there was a massive difference in adrenaline for me when it came to fighting bad guys and not hitting woodland animals. Maybe it was because, in a fight, that adrenaline had somewhere to go. Or maybe the adrenaline just faded to the back of your mind because you were too busy focusing on not being killed to focus on anything else. When you were staring down an unmoving animal and the choice to hit things was almost completely taken away from you, you were riding on fear and fear alone. The only focus was keeping the car from hitting a body, which took significantly less focus than, say, hand-to-hand combat, even if you were swerving all over the road. Your heart had time to set up shop in your throat and try to choke you, and once you swallowed the muscle back down, all you could think to do to relieve the tension was laugh. Or that was all I could do. All we could do.

"Yes," he replied, humor still high in his tone.

"Well, the males have antlers so you're clearly missing the obvious on that one," I said lightly.

"Clearly," he murmured.

"And don't underestimate how sharp those hooves are," I added. I pressed all of my fingers together to make what looked like either a hand spear or the worst duck shadow puppet on the planet and jabbed at the air. "They just get right in there and gouge at you until you're done for. You're lucky I was here."

"To save me from the deer?" Steve quipped.

"You're damn right," I replied, emphatically. "Those furry fuckers aren't touchin' you. No way, no how."

Steve laughed again, and I allowed myself to swim in the sound of it. It wasn't every day I made someone so synonymous with seriousness laugh multiple times, especially within the span of a few minutes, even after we'd just been through a close-call, and I had the feeling he didn't get to laugh like this nearly as often as he'd like to. Maybe the stress of looking for his friend was starting to wear on him, and he was at that point I'd been in earlier, where when you're close to one emotion, you're close to all of them. No matter the reason, his laugh was music to the ears, and I let myself indulge in the guilty pleasure of its sound for just a moment.

"Well, thank you for saving me from the deer of the world," he said, only half teasing.

I contentedly sank down into my seat, not entirely unlike a duck settling into a nest, and crossed my arms under my breasts. If he was going to half-tease, I was going to half-way be pretend pouty. The other half was me being legitimately proud of making him so much as smile. The seatbelt tried to worm its way up my chest to dig into my neck, so I clenched a fist around it so I wouldn't lose blood supply to my brain as I put on my little show.

"You're welcome," I said, lifting my chin haughtily.

To my utmost surprise, he leaned toward me a little as if he were going to impart on me a great secret, his eyes still on the road.

"You know the windshield of this car is reinforced, right?"

"Against bullets!" I argued. I pulled one of my arms out to gesture at the glass in front of me. "A deer is way bigger than a bullet and unless there are bars across the window, that damn thing is going to end up in your lap."

He settled back into his seat, his chest shaking with a quiet snicker. Oh, so that was how it was going to be?

I sucked my teeth at him and crossed my arms again. "Yuck it up, city boy."

"I just think it's funny how passionate you are about deer," he said.

"I am not passionate about deer," I protested.

"You are a little."

"I'm passionate about not dying because of them," I said.

"See?"

"You know what?" I started, looking over at him in faux vexation. He turned his head slightly to show he was listening, ready for any argument I threw at him. Thankfully, I had a really good one that no one lower on the totem pole had ever thrown at him before. "Shut up."

Steve's eyebrows raised in surprise and he looked at me again, a grin pulling at his lips, humor making his eyes sparkle like blue topaz jewels. My breath caught in my chest. Dear gods, the man was hot. I was trying my damndest to keep the fact in the very back of my mind because the last thing I needed was to be attracted to him or any colleague of mine, superior or not. But it was really fucking hard when he smiled like that. Or said nerdy shit about Smaug. Dammit, I could not be this distracted by him every time he smiled at me if I was going to protect him! Those thoughts, those stupid feelings, had to stay locked away, so I shoved them into the recesses of my mind and vowed to never look at them again. Please let me never look at them again.

"Watch the road, pretty boy," I grumbled just as he turned away from me. Holy shit, he'd been looking at me for maybe half-a second and it had felt like a lifetime. That man's power was not in his muscle; it was in his charm. Maybe if I were less charming, he wouldn't grin at me anymore and there wouldn't be a problem. Yeah, let's try that. "If another deer pops up, I'm testing your theory by sending it to your side of the car."

"I definitely understand your nickname now," he said, his tone just shy of being completely dry.

"Oh, I get why people murder in cold blood now," I whispered. "Fucking McIntosh."

"You wouldn't do that," he said. He sounded very sure of himself for having just met me. Either this trust thing was coming along great or he was trying to ease me into a false sense of security.

"To McIntosh, I would," I said.

"I don't buy it," he said, throwing my own words from earlier back at me.

"You can't open the book of my life to page 175 and think you know me," I scoffed.

He laughed again, and I honestly couldn't believe how well this was going. He must be trying to lull me into a false sense of security, right? No one was this affable and nice, especially not when they were on the kind of mission he was, especially when they were talking to me.

"I know you wouldn't do that to him, at least," he amended.

Now we were getting somewhere! He knew I was a terrible person. He was just playing nice to make this little outing easier for both of us. Well, easier for him. It would be easier for me if he were an asshole because then I wouldn't find him attractive, but that was never going to happen so here we were.

Drawing hard on my angsty teen days, I sighed hard. "You're right. I would only maim him."

"That, I believe," he said.

A flash of white in the corner of my eye drew my gaze away from his smiling face and found a sign finally signaling that we were close to the highway. We'd be in Pittsburg in no time. Hopefully. If there was traffic, I was going to be pissed. I'd seen what had happened to our people when there was too much traffic. It made me itchy to think that I was stuck with nowhere to run, or drive. Hello paranoia, my old friend.

An alert on the laptop pulled me out of my suddenly despondent train of thought. I'd received an e-mail. Yippee skippy. I hoped it was that cute guy from down the street! Oh, who the hell was my sarcasm kidding? It was work and I knew it. Steve, upon hearing the notification, lost most of his humor and glanced at me. He was a smart man, as I'd already established in my own mind, so he knew it was something from headquarters and that it was probably something about Barnes.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Dunno yet. Gimme a second or five," I replied.

Pushing myself up, I put my feet back on the floor where they belonged rather than jammed into the sides of the footwell to keep my legs up, and let go of the seatbelt when I knew it wouldn't smack me in the neck. I went to my e-mails and found that I'd received something from one of Fury's many classified e-mail addresses. It wasn't titled, just had a single period to fill space. That was helpful. I clicked it open. Inside was a cryptic message from Fury and a downloadable file.

"Got this from the Cap exhibit a while back."

Well, that was about as helpful as the e-mail title. I clicked the file to download it, then opened it as soon as the computer would let me. It was a black-and-white photo of the Captain America exhibit. Standing in front of the Bucky Barnes memorial was a man in a dark jacket, jeans, and a black baseball cap, his face well hidden from the camera with the brim of the hat. This photo did literally nothing to help me. It took me a second too long to figure out that it wasn't a photo. It was a video. How I'd missed that, I had no idea. Maybe I'd spaced out? Probably.

Regardless of me missing the obvious, I clicked over to the media player and started the video. The man walked very calmly around the meandering crowd, his head down to avoid the cameras, as if he'd done this before, and his focus seemingly glued to the James Barnes memorial. He made his way to the thick, etched glass and stood there for a few long minutes, long enough to read the memorial and have some deep personal thoughts about the only assumed loss of Rogers' troops. The man took a sudden step back and glanced up to the top of the memorial, as if he were sizing it up. In a split second, he turn his gaze down and started walking out of the exhibit.

I rewound the video and clicked pause the moment the man looked up. Like most, if not all, surveillance, the image was grainy. However, I could make out shoulder length dark hair that was tucked in to the collar of the jacket, and a set of downturned lips. The jaw was strong and covered with dark stubble, with what looked like a cleft in the chin if the shadow there meant anything. The eyes were a bit harder to make out, but I'd have bet good money that I was staring at our missing person.

"It's Barnes," I breathed.

The SUV swerved and lurched, and I went flying forward in to my seatbelt for the second time in fifteen minutes. My hands clung to the laptop, making sure it didn't go flying to the floorboard as Steve whipped the car over to the side of the road. I was glad I'd sat up when I'd gotten the e-mail, otherwise I would have had a seat belt cutting off my air supply. I wanted to curse him for scaring the hell out of me, maybe glare at him or punch him in the arm for good measure, but I honestly didn't blame him too much for his reaction. I hadn't given him any information other than the fact that I'd received something on his lost best friend. I didn't think slamming on the brakes was entirely necessary, but hey, I wasn't the one who'd been searching for someone for months on end.

We stopped and he threw the car in park so he could turn to me without worrying about letting up on the brake.

"May I?" he asked, reaching for the computer.

Jeez, he was polite for a guy who'd nearly thrown me through a windshield. Okay, maybe I did blame him more than I was willing to admit. However, I simply nodded and handed over the laptop. He stared at the screen for a moment, then another, as if he was willing the screen to give up its secrets. Another moment passed before he looked up at me. His eyebrows were pinched over serious blue eyes. Just like that, all of the humor was gone, and I felt a bit of sorrow for its loss. We'd been having a good time, and I had the feeling that he didn't get to have nearly as many good times as he wanted. Plus, selfish as it was, it had felt like we were making some serious progress in our bodyguard/charge relationship. Now we were making progress in another area, but just barely, and this area wasn't nearly as fun.

"When was this?" he asked.

"According to Fury, a while back. Let me see it again?" I leaned over, turning the screen back to face me.

Steve allowed it. I looked at the video. Surveillance videos usually had time stamps, which was why the criminal justice system loved using them as evidence. Yay for technology!

Oh, yay. Our video had a time stamp. Thank friggin' goodness. The video was dated about a month after the reveal of the Hydra infestation and was taken at about seven at night. Plenty of people had been wandering around the exhibit, and people generally had more time to do that at night, even if it was tourist trap D.C. It was a smart move on Barnes' part. Go to a crowded place, surround yourself with civilians so you could go as incognito as possible while not worrying about being attacked, and get the hell out as soon as you could in order to avoid detection. He had almost succeeded in that last bit, and honestly, it was a miracle we'd even found the footage. He'd looked up for a split second, and the Cap exhibit almost always had people roaming around. Picking him out of the crowd, even with how closely monitored the exhibit was, would have been impossible if he hadn't had the urge to look up. It was a damn good find, especially since the video was so grainy and I really only knew who I was looking at since that's who we were looking for. Five bucks said the only reason we'd been able to identify him was because we got an update to our facial recognition scan system about a month and a half ago.

"It's dated about a month after Barnes disappeared," I said, turning the screen back to Steve.

"So he was still in D.C. after S.H.I.E.L.D. was destroyed," Steve said. "Why didn't he just come find me? Why go to the exhibit?"

There was so much pain and confusion in his eyes that it almost hurt to look at it. On some level, he must have felt betrayed. This was supposed to be his best friend, and brainwashed or not, you'd think your best friend would turn to you for clues as to who they were rather than go to a memorial to read minimal, objective statements about themselves. Of course, I was probably projecting the betrayed bit on to him. I did have a shoddy moral compass, after all.

I fought to not reach out and touch Steve's arm, fought to not give him physical comfort to dampen the pain in his eyes. It was one hell of a fight. It was so much of a fight that I actually caught myself absent-mindedly reaching out to him and had to force myself to pull my hand back to rest on my thigh. I didn't know if he'd seen it, what with being so wrapped up in finding out that Barnes had stayed in D.C., but he was an observant man, so who knew.

"Maybe," I started, "he needed to objectively look at himself before he talked to you. All you'd give him would be happy memories of your lives, and he's more multi-faceted than that. He's had more life experiences beyond your friendship. He has to find out who he is on his own before he can come back to you and learn about himself through your eyes."

I really hoped that made sense to him. When he looked up at me, I saw a flicker of understanding behind the pain in his eyes. Was I going to need to elaborate? No. No, I wasn't. I saw that flicker grow to a flame as he realized what Barnes was doing. He still didn't like it, but he understood, and that seemed to be enough for him. Thank goodness. Steve had biased memories of Barnes, and even when Barnes was trying to kill both him and Fury, Steve had insisted that the good man he knew was still there, even when all evidence was pointing to the contrary. Barnes needed to know what he'd done in the war, and for Hydra, and then he could come talk to Steve. Then he could learn about the good man he was. Hell, maybe he would find out that he was a good man on all his own. I hoped.

I gently pulled the laptop out of Steve's hands and set it on my lap once again. He didn't fight to hold on to it, something for which I was extremely grateful. He'd gleaned all the information he could from the still frame. Unfortunately, now he looked a little glassy-eyed, like he was locked too far inside of his own head. I counted that as a double-edged sword. He was comfortable enough around me to lose himself, but he was also losing himself. I needed him here if we were going to get anywhere, physically or otherwise.

My hand reached out, and this time I didn't stop myself. I touched his forearm, which was so tight with tension that I could feel every muscle under his warm skin, hard and unyielding as rock. Not good. His eyes cleared and he looked at me as if seeing me for the first time. Shit. Really not good. I needed him at the top of his game, dammit. Fury was right. Steve couldn't do this alone. He was too close to it all. Even his moral compass was being pulled out of whack by the magnet that was his extreme emotions. I'd never heard of him doing shit like this. It bothered me. He was supposedly always level-headed and logical, even when he was pissed. I'd heard that much about him from people who'd worked with him in the past. Now, he was a wreck. His own personal mission was getting in the way of his logic and reasoning, and it bugged me that it was up to me, the person who was known to have issues with logically sound personal missions, to ensure that he was being reasonable.

"Do you want me to drive?" I asked, my voice as gentle as I could make it.

It was my way of asking if he was alright without asking if he was alright. I knew he wasn't. He knew he wasn't. It was a matter of just how not-alright he was.

"No," he said. "You have to keep an eye out for threats."

At least he was alright enough to have reasonable thoughts about safety. That was good. I gave him a curt nod and pulled my hand back. His arm was still tense enough that my fingertips could make out the rise and fall of different muscles as he moved to grab the steering wheel, but if he said he could drive, I'd believe him. I needed to believe him. That was how that trust thing worked. He pulled back on to the road, and once again we were on our way to Pittsburg, only this time I was worried about him as much as I was worried about other people on the road.


	4. Checking In or Checking Out?

We rode in near silence for most of the trip, with only the occasional directions from the GPS breaking the still air. I would have turned on the radio, but I doubted that Steve would be able to handle both my musical tastes and his friend's reappearance at the same time. Sure, he knew that Mr. Stark, had certain musical tastes (hell, I'd heard them when the billionaire drove into the compound), and that they were far different from anything they'd had in the forties, but he didn't know that I shared those tastes or that my tastes were even more, shall I say, heavy than Mr. Stark's. Something told me that turning on Nightwish or AC/DC, or even a soft Pink Floyd, would hurt Steve more than it would help him. Sometimes music was good for the soul, sometimes it was good for filling an uncomfortable silence, and sometimes it was bad for exactly both of those things. I would have talked to him if I'd had any idea as to what I should say to make him feel better, but I didn't know him well enough to know if anything I said would make the situation better or worse. Therefore, I did the only thing I knew would work without a doubt, and kept my damn mouth shut for once. If he wanted to talk, he could be the one to break the silence.

So, instead of listening to anything interesting, we listened to air rush past the car and the whir of tires as they moved over different types of asphalt. Even when we hit a traffic jam, we stayed locked in silence. I was too busy being paranoid to talk in that instant, anyway, and I think Steve saw that. How wonderfully observant of him. Of course, when your car mate's saucer-sized eyes kept scanning your surroundings like they were expecting a full-on ambush, it didn't take very many observation skills for you to know to leave them the hell alone.

Thankfully, we made it to the hotel without being ambushed or so much as rear-ended. I'd almost jumped out of my skin when some moron cut us off, but at least no one was injured. Or arrested. We were late for our check-in time, but we'd made it and that's what mattered. I said a silent thank you to the universe as I unbuckled my seatbelt, grabbed my newly refilled goodie bag, and reached for the door handle.

"Stay here a moment," I said as I opened the door.

"I won't move," Steve replied.

Good boy. No no, good man. "Good boy" held way too many connotations that I didn't want to think about, and I think that said a lot about me. Mostly that I really should have gone on Tinder or something before I went on this mission. Damn my shortsightedness!

I stepped out of the car to do my visual sweep, just like I'd done at my apartment, made my way around the back of the car to make sure no one had managed to quickly sneak back there, and finally ended up at Steve's door, giving him the tiniest nod that it was okay to come out. I stepped to the side, keeping my back to the car so no one could attack me from behind, and watched as Steve unfolded his height out of the car. His movements were stiff from prolonged muscle tension while being stuffed in a seat for hours on end, and I wished I could take him right back to my masseuse. I could almost see his shoulders becoming rocks.

"How do you feel about being a bellhop for five minutes?" I asked in a poor attempt at levity.

"What?" he asked, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

"One of us has to get the bags out of the backseat, and it can't be me," I replied. "Ya know?"

He knew. The small, half-smile laced with only a hint of the melancholy I knew he felt told me he knew. The way that little smile morphed into one of appreciation told me he knew I was trying to cheer him up, too.

"Yeah, I know," he said.

I opened the back door for him and watched our surrounding as he slipped around me.

"Do bellhops take your luggage from your car?" he asked as he leaned in to grab the bags.

I suddenly became very aware of how nice the tree in the distance looked and desperately tried to not turn my head to look at his ass. It's basic human instinct to look at someone's ass when they bend over, attractive or not. That's what I was telling myself and no one could convince me otherwise. No matter what, it was distracting.

"Sometimes," I replied. "I just didn't want to say cab driver or pack mule. That last one feels a bit rude."

"A bit?" he asked, incredulously.

"Just a skosh," I said, completely deadpan. "You're stronger than a pack mule, if that counts for anything. More attractive, too."

Ooooh, had I really just said that last part? Yeah, yeah, I had, but I couldn't take it back now. And honestly, he had to know that people found him attractive by now. There were straight guys that wanted him, so I was just stating the obvious, and I was barely doing that because I was effectively comparing him to cattle. Wow, that was so not better. Could I go home now?

He paused in his rustling around for a moment, as if he was trying to decide if he'd really heard what he'd thought he did, before he said, with humor in his voice, "It doesn't."

"Fair enough," I muttered, the words coming from the back of my throat to make them strained yet loud enough for him to hear.

When he finally pulled himself back out of the car, he had the handles of all of the bags in his hands, which was impressive since the bulk alone made them difficult to keep together. He held one handful out to me and, thankfully, waited until I held my hand out to drop them. Some people I knew wouldn't wait for me. They'd just let the bags fall on my feet. He was a nice guy, though, so he wouldn't do that shit.

"I'm not the only attractive pack mule in the vicinity," he said dryly as he closed the door.

My mouth dropped open. Oh, he was fucking sassy. Was that why he was so tall? He needed room to keep all the sass? I mean, he'd been saucy plenty of times earlier, but this was the first time he'd really gone all out. And my bad joke had given him the ammo. Dammit! I must rectify this to where I came out on top and he came out amused but definitely not the winner in the sass war.

I narrowed my eyes at him in challenge. "All these flavors and you chose to be salty."

"I called you attractive, didn't I?" he asked, that half-smile of his returning as he shrugged his eyebrows at me. Was it just me or were his pupils bigger than they should have been in the bright hotel lights illuminating the dark parking lot? It had to be just me. My own various stresses were making me see things. Things that flustered me to no end when he paired them with words like "attractive."

I gaped at him, my mouth trying to form words only to find that sound refused to come out. Steve found this very amusing and his half-smile blossomed into a full-blown grin, his eyes sparking with suppressed laughter as if the blue of his eyes were ocean waves catching the sunlight. I was glad he was feeling better, or at least well enough to be distracted from his problems, but I was pretty sure I was two seconds away from my cheeks turning red.

"I…have no response to that, so I'm just going to walk away," I finally managed. I whirled around, as much as the hefty bags in my grip would allow, and did just that. A few steps away I added, "How does that taste?"

"A little bit like victory," he replied, and I could hear the smile clear on his voice. The SUV beeped behind me, telling me he'd locked it.

I sucked my teeth at him in mock annoyance. Okay, semi-real annoyance because I hated being flustered. "You know what?"

"Shut up?" he asked, finishing my statement for me. Boy, he picked up on shit quick.

"Oh good. You can read minds," I said enthusiastically.

He paused for a moment and I knew, I just knew, I'd lost him for a moment inside his own head, that his mission to find Barnes had crashed over him that quickly with such a simple sentence. When he spoke again, some of the humor was gone, even though I heard him strain to keep it alive.

"Only yours," he replied.

"Oo. Then I'm sorry for your plight," I responded, keeping my tone light yet meaning about ten different things.

He stepped up next to me, letting his long legs close the gap I hadn't been trying to keep, and said, "I can handle it."

Oh yeah. He was smart. He read between all my lines. Of course, that wasn't hard to do when I wasn't trying to be cryptic, but still, some people wouldn't have gotten it.

"I know you can," I replied. "Doesn't mean it's not a pain in the ass. Or in this case, a pain in the brain."

"I appreciate that," he said, sounding like he meant every syllable.

He took a could of loping steps forward to get the door like the gentleman, and charge, he was, allowing me to go first to make sure the lobby was safe. I locked eyes with him as he pulled on the handle.

"Any time," I said, so sincerely that I could hear my coworkers retching from here. We didn't exactly do sincere with each other.

Steve didn't retch and didn't brush off my near-cloying sentiment. Instead, he looked at me with such a genuine expression of gratitude that it almost hurt my heart to see it.

"Thank you."

It was weird, how me acknowledging how hard this was for him always seemed to bring such heady emotion from him. I was guessing he didn't get a lot of people telling him they got it, that they knew it must be eating him alive, that they were willing to believe him and his pain when he said his friend was a good man. What was weirder is that his responses said that he knew I was being honest, that I wasn't bullshitting him just to get him to trust me and fall in line later. He was reading me like a book, and what was weirder than it all was that I was letting him.

"No problem," I replied, the shadow of a comforting smile curling the edges of my lips.

He returned the smile, his being one of gratefulness rather than comfort, and opened the door without saying another word.

The lobby was larger than I expected, and fancy. A seating area to the left was filled plush red chairs, set across from each other to offset the tan and beige loveseat near the door and the rug underneath them all. Three large, shiny wooden cubes acted as coffee tables between the chairs, and a weird, curved cabinet thing was pressed to the back of the small loveseat. A curved wall further left with built-in booth seats led the eye north to a black tile fireplace, a small waterfall halfway up the wall trickling to create a sense of balance and irony. To the south of the curved wall, more chairs were set in front of booths built into a red brick wall. Large wooden frames hung from the ceiling over it all.

The front desk was wooden with granite countertops and slightly curved, with more of those wooden frames, this time filled with brown-and-tan colored glass, hanging over it. Blown glass figures were settled into small nooks behind the desk. A small, open-air refrigerator offered food and drink to any of the three people lounging about, or any of the other people staying here who might want to pay for it.

Everyone looked up when the door opened, but the only one who perked up was the beautiful blonde behind the front desk, her long hair artfully draped down her back in loose curls. She flashed me a smile, the kind that lit up a room, and I felt a twinge of idiotic jealousy, wishing that I could have one of those, too, that could bring a room to a stand-still with a single flash of white teeth. Well, I guess I could, but it wasn't anywhere close to being the same and it didn't open nearly as many doors as her smile did. Unless people were running out of those doors. It scared people and didn't get me any dates, is what I was saying. She was also tall, around five foot nine, though I was betting some of that height was due to high heels and not genetics.

I guess Steve felt that everything was safe since I felt him enter the room behind me, the heat from his body telling me he was only inches away. I didn't know it was humanly possible, but the woman's smile got brighter the second she saw Steve. I didn't blame her, but if she could turn down the wattage before I went blind, I would be grateful.

My wish was soon fulfilled, for as I walked toward the desk, her smile faltered. I was betting it was the fact that Steve seemed to be glued to my side. Maybe it was the borderline military fatigues, but I had my money placed on her thinking he was dating me. I wanted to saunter up to her, to be the cock of the walk with the hottest fake boyfriend in the room, but the bags in my hand made that much harder to do and if I tried swaying of any kind, I'd probably end up looking like a limping penguin. Not sexy. Besides, even I lit up a little when I first saw him, and I knew that wouldn't have changed if he'd been seeing someone. Bad, but true. As long as I didn't act on it, I wasn't a horrible human being. Well, not as horrible. Okay, I was a shit person, but I wasn't a homewrecker.

Seeing as how I didn't know what exactly had made her smile, whether it be professionalism or a hot guy, and how I didn't have a moral leg to stand on when it came to staring at my charge, I settled for walking up to the desk with a warm smile rather than the saucy grin I'd been planning on. Who said I couldn't be nice? Everyone at the agency, but that didn't really matter. As I got closer, I noticed a name tag pinned to her dark blue blazer. She was Rebecca, the cheerful woman who'd helped me book the room. Now I had to be nice. Son of a bitch.

"I'm Victoria Johnson. I talked to you earlier this afternoon," I said to Rebecca as I neared the desk.

I'd have offered to shake her hand, but I was too paranoid for that and she was already tapping away at the computer behind the desk. Why paranoid? Well, she could have been working for Hydra, and with one good pull, she could lurch me over the counter and shove a pen into my neck. With that in mind, my hand stayed well out of her grasp and very close to the gun hidden under my shirt.

"Of course!" she exclaimed with another bright smile. "I'm glad to see you and your…" she paused as she looked at Steve, then back at me, as if she were trying to find the right word for our relationship. She finally settled on the one that most people seem to settle on when they see a male and female together and said, "boyfriend were able to make it. Your room is ready for you."

As she spoke, I dug into my pocket, where I'd shoved the appropriate ID and credit card for my alias. I handed them over to her with a smile. Well, I more placed them on the counter top and slid them toward her. Again, paranoia. It's a wonderful thing, even if it is rude to not place things directly into people's hands.

"Oh, come hell or high water, we were going to get here one way or another," I said. "That traffic was just awful!

I added a cheerful lilt to my own voice and felt a little sick doing it. I could be nice, but I wasn't bubbly. The most I got to was giddy, and even that had a limited life span. Usually. Unless it was something I was really excited for. Damn, I was a contradictory bitch.

"And how long are you planning your stay for?" Rebecca asked as she tapped on her keyboard. "I apologize. I forgot to ask you over the phone."

"Oh, don't worry about it," I replied, waving off her apology. "I swear, I'd forget my head if it weren't for him."

I reached for Steve, my hand not connecting with his, but simply trying to make the visual point that we were together, to both him and Rebecca.

"It's why I'm dressed like I just stepped out of a boot camp. We had a little costume party at work and I completely forgot about our trip. Um…you asked how long we wanted to stay?" I added. I was going to play up the ditz hard.

"Yes, ma'am," she said politely. Her smile was still warm and welcoming, but I was betting all of it was for Steve now and none of it was for the flake in front of her.

I rested my left elbow on the counter and leaned forward a little. I let a little bit of wickedness fill my eyes, the kind that had nothing to do with death and everything to do with being kicked out of a church for being too sinful.

"That depends on how long it's available," I said, my voice dropping to just above a whisper, as if I were sharing a nefarious, girly secret with her.

"Oh," she said. Her honey-brown eyes widened a little in embarrassment. She seemed the get the message I was trying to get across. The room was going to be booked for lots and lots of sex, as far as she knew. Maybe if I laid it on thick enough, she wouldn't realize that I'd booked a room with two beds. Or she'd think both beds would be getting a workout. Either one worked for me. I suddenly noticed that she was wearing carefully applied makeup, the kind that made you look like you had none on, when in reality your skin couldn't breathe through all of the layers of liquid and powder. She cast her eyes, which had a light dusting of eyeshadow and a swipe of mascara, down to look at the screen as she tapped a bit more and said, "The room is available for two weeks."

"Great!" I exclaimed, my smile growing wider. "We've been needing a getaway. That sounds like just the right amount of time. Now, if we need to leave early, what will the cancellation fee be?"

This was an area she felt comfortable in, not my alleged sexcapades, and it showed as she straightened with a little bounce, making herself taller and perkier than I'd originally thought. I was betting she'd been a cheerleader at some point. There was just something about that bounce and how quickly she changed her stance that made me think she'd been in some sort of showy activity when she was younger. Her eyes widened again, this time with a professional smile.

"We have a one-hundred-and-fifty dollar cancellation policy and those will be charged to the card when you check out," she said.

"Awesome. We'll do that, then. Book us for the next two weeks, please," I said.

She checked us in and gave us two card keys for the room. I instantly handed one to Steve, who had been surprisingly quiet throughout the entire interaction, then turned to get back Victoria's ID and credit card. With that, we were on our way to the elevator and our room.

As we silently stepped onto the elevator, I had to admit to myself that I felt bad for straight up implying in front of him to a stranger that we were going to be engaging in the horizontal tango and I was really glad I hadn't looked at him during my entire exchange with Rebecca, otherwise I might have felt too guilty to continue the ruse. The guy probably didn't even let who he was dating go public among his friends for six months, let alone let strangers know who he was fucking. However, if we were going to find Barnes, we were going to have to engage in a little spy work that neither of us enjoyed. And man, I fucking hated being perky.

I shuddered away the feeling of being bubbly and tried to get the taste of those unnecessarily saccharine words out of my mouth by letting fresh air hit my tongue, my face twisting in disgust as I opened my mouth to let the taste of metallic air wash me clean. And quite suddenly, I was very aware of a hole being stared into my head. Looking over, I found Steve looking at me, questions written all over his face, the most prominent being "what the hell are you doing?". I had to hand it to him, though, he didn't look nearly as uncomfortable as I thought he would after everything I'd forced him into in the lobby.

"What?" I asked, the word a few notches below sounding like a challenge.

"Are you alright?" he asked. His tone was mild, but there was a very clear note of curiosity to it.

"Yeah. I just feel gross. Ironically, acting incredibly sweet gives me a sour taste in my mouth," I replied.

"It could have been worse," he reasoned. My gods, was he an optimist? I thought he was a realist. Maybe he was a realistic optimist?

"Yeah," I agreed. "It could have been an old guy. That always makes things a little bit weirder, especially if you have to flirt. Flirting with them isn't nearly as fun as you think it would be. You wouldn't believe how much mouthwash I've had to down to get that taste out of my mouth. I'm probably going to die young."

I gave him a huge grin to let him know it was all a big joke, even though half of it wasn't and I really did use mouthwash as placebo more than anything at this point. I just didn't swallow it.

"At least you won't have to flirt with old men anymore," Steve quipped, giving me another one of his half-smiles and shocking the hell out of me.

That was some dark humor right there, but why was I surprised? He was raised during the Depression, when death was just around the corner for a lot of people, him included. Plus, he fought a goddamn war. He wasn't a pure angel. Dude probably had some jokes that would make my jaw drop, and that took some doing. And I was totally into it. People with dark humor were the best.

Keeping my elbow by my side, I threw my one free hand up and looked at the ceiling.

"He gets it!" I exclaimed at the shiny metal above me. I looked over at him, then, finding humor glimmering in his eyes, and added, "Why are you the only one who gets it?"

"Because I wouldn't want to do it, either," he replied as the elevator doors dinged open.

"That's totally fair," I said, stepping out in front of him to check the hall. It was clear and I motioned him out with a quick, subtle flick of my fingers as I checked the engraved plaque nailed into the wall to find which way our room was. It was to the right, so I headed in that direction. "You'd think more people would feel that way, too, but everyone just says to stop complaining because it's a part of the job, but I don't see them sitting on some old geezer's lap, trying to finesse information out of him."

Wow, I was really talkative all of a sudden. It was almost like I was uncomfortable for some reason. A reason I hadn't previously wanted to think about but was now very aware of now that we were rapidly approaching it down a carpeted hallway. I really didn't want to share a room with him. I'd booked the room and played our relationship up for Rebecca while probably making Steve uncomfortable in the process, but I hadn't really thought about anything I was saying or doing. Now that I was staring down the barrel of the gun I'd loaded, I really didn't want to pull the trigger. But I could do this. I could totally do this. I'd roomed with hot guys before and come out the other side literally untouched. I could do it again. Yep. Stray strong, Dani Girl.

"Part of the job or not, I can't imagine that someone wouldn't complain about it," Steve said.

"Or drink mouth wash over it?" I joked, expertly masking my rising unease.

"Exactly," he chuckled.

We reached the room as the echo of his laugh died against the walls. By this point, he knew the drill, and he stayed to the side of the door so anyone inside wouldn't try to shoot him through it. I did the same, going to the other side of the door so I could stick my keycard in without getting blown away. The lock clicked, the red light turned green, and I pushed the door open, waiting a moment for the gunshots. I wasn't really expecting them, but you had to expect the unexpected in this job, and this was always the point in movies when people got shot. Well, this point and every other point. Whatever.

No one started strafing bullets into the wall, so I figured it was safe to peek inside. I ducked down low, knowing that if anyone was inside, they'd automatically aim high, since that's where most people would poke their little heads out. I was not most people. And I really hoped there weren't any security cameras catching all of this.

While I didn't know if some security guard was calling the cops on us, I did know that I couldn't see anyone in the room. Yet. I motioned for Steve to stay where he was and walked in as quietly as I could.

I carefully set my bags on the dark tan, cornered sofa that sat in front of a huge flat-screen television. The TV was set on top of a jutted-out section of latte-colored wall that was trimmed with light brown wood. A set of cubby holes was carved in to the section of wall and lined with that same light brown wood. That seemed to be the running theme of the room. Light brown wood, latte colored walls, and varying shades of brown décor. Hell, the couch even had a dark brown and tan throw pillows, as well as a milk-chocolate colored leather ottoman.

A dry bar and small desk to the right of the door, opposite the couch, followed the same color scheme, only the granite of the counter tops was black with brown flecks. Essentially, it was the best kind of counter top to have if you wanted to hide stains. I was suddenly glad I wasn't a clean freak, otherwise I'd have spent the rest of the day scrubbing the counters down until they sparkled. A mirror hung over the dry bar, just in case you wanted to get a good look at yourself while you drank five-dollar bottles of Jack Daniels or your morning cup of coffee. Yeah, get a good look at yourself while you drink your java, looking like you just walked away from a traffic accident. That'll make your morning better.

The rest of the room was separated by a wood and plastic screen that looked like rice paper and hid all but the feet of the queen-sized beds. I quietly slid my gun out of its holster and walked toward the divider. Padding silently across the floor was no easy task, even if it was carpeted, due to my boots. It took a lot of training and skill to walk around in boots and not make any noise. Thankfully, I managed.

I rounded the screen, which was more solid than it had first appeared, and found that both beds were done entirely in white. The pillows, the sheets, the comforters, everything was white. The first thought that came to mind went right in line with the little lie I'd insinuated at Rebecca, and my second thought was "Ew. I hope these are bleached every day." The mattresses were stacked on top of frames that only an ant could crawl under, the bottom, black part of the frame not even an inch off of the ground while the light wood part of the frame was tiered on top of that. At least I knew an under-the-bed ambush wasn't possible. That made me relax a little. I made sure to check between the beds and the window, just in case, all the while keeping my eye on the bathroom that was settled directly across from the beds.

The door of the bathroom was open, showing off a small, simple space with those same black granite countertops and your standard fare toilet and shower. My issue was what could be behind the open door. Some bathrooms had little nooks behind the door for towels or robes or hangers, and while that normally made me happy, right now it made me uneasy.

What little relaxation I'd had with the beds fled my system and left me with nothing but the detached instinct of someone who'd done this one too many times. Once again, I quietly made my way across the floor, lowering my body in to a crouch as I walked, going in for that unexpected low angle again. I stopped in front of the door, one knee touching the hard tile of the exposed bathroom floor. I lifted my arm up and slightly to the right, the butt of my gun pointing toward the door hinges. If anyone was in there, they would fire straight ahead. This way, I didn't have to worry about a bullet catching me in the arm, just lots of wood and splinters. My breath caught in my chest as I prepared myself for a fight. As carefully as I could, I leaned around the bottom of the door, letting only one eye peek out from behind the wood. I could probably survive a bullet to the side of my head, but a straight on forehead shot was far more difficult to walk away from. And that, kids, is why you never go forehead first in to anything. It took only a split second for my mind to recognize that there was nothing but a wall behind the door. I let out the breath I'd been holding and stood up.

"Clear," I called out.

I exited the bathroom to see Steve closing the door, which was much thicker than I thought it was, his eyes taking in the details of the room as he walked toward the beds.

"Nice room," he said as he passed by me. If I didn't know any better, I'd think he was struggling to find something to talk about. And was that a bit of tension I saw in his shoulders as he set his bags on his bed? Huh. I guess I wasn't the only one realizing that they were incredibly uncomfortable with this situation, which I'd made worse. I was already kicking myself, and I was going to punch Fury for putting us through this, but in the meantime, I was going to have to do emotional damage control. Dammit.

"Right?" I replied, slipping my gun back into the holster and fluttering my shirt back down around it. "Especially that TV. Did you see that thing?"

Steve raised an eyebrow at me at that. "How much TV do you think we're going to be watching?"

"What, you think I'm going to just sit here and listen to you breathe all day?" I scoffed. "That thing's going to be on low volume until we go to sleep."

I walked back into what passed for a living room to grab my bags from the couch.

"I don't breathe loudly," Steve said, sounding both confused and ever so slightly defensive, though I was certain him sounding defensive was all part of our back and forth joking. We seemed to be pretty good at that, oddly enough.

"No, you don't," I conceded as I rounded the screen to dump my bags between the divider and the bed, "but that doesn't mean I want to sit in silence with you, either. The mind goes weird places when it's given the chance to wander."

"Yeah," he said, sounding a touch bleaker than he had a moment before. "Yeah, it does."

Me and my big mouth. "Please tell me you at least brought books so you're not staring at the wall all day?"

"Yes, I brought books," he said, the shadow of a smile touching his lips. "I was hoping I wouldn't be sitting down long enough to read them, though."

"I was hoping I would be on my couch eating popcorn and watching Firefly by now, but life has a way of ruining plans," I replied. Okay, maybe telling him going on this mission had ruined my plans wasn't the best way to endear myself to him or make him feel better. Think fast. Be funny to smooth the rough edge. "Like that time I tried to book a plane to the Bahamas and the booking agent got arrested for smuggling cocaine. Worst vacation I've ever had."

Wait, what time was it? I looked at the nightstand that was nestled between the two beds, immediately finding the glowing white numbers of an alarm clock reading out a steady 9:44pm. Yeah, I would definitely be vegging on my couch by now if this were a normal work day. As it were, I was emotionally exhausted from all the crap the day, and Fury, had dumped on me, and was ready to go to bed. I grabbed my bag of clothes from the floor and plopped it onto my bed, unzipping it so I could get to what passed for my pajamas.

"I can't tell if you're joking or not," Steve said.

"I'm being totally fucking serious," I replied as I dug through my bag. "Though I will admit that I would find it way funnier if it hadn't happened to me. The booking agent was this little old white woman from Indiana. Looked like she belonged in a commercial for denture paste."

I plucked a grey V-neck shirt, a pair of black workout shorts that were the same material as sweatpants, and my toiletry bag out of the duffel and shoved them under my arm. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Steve look at the clock and turned just in time to see surprise twitch his eyebrows up and part his lips. Good to know I wasn't the only one shocked at the time. The traffic had been so heavy, we hadn't even stopped to get food. And now that I'd thought about that, I was incredibly hungry.

I took a step toward the bathroom, wanting to change far away from Steve's line of sight, and ended up drawing his attention back to me.

"Now I know you're joking," he said.

"Her name was Marge Erikson in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and it was in the papers. Google it if you don't believe me," I said, walking toward the bathroom as I spoke. There. Hopefully that had eased some of his worries. "Uh, by the way, help yourself to the mini fridge. Victoria is buying and she has a gold card."

With that, I entered the bathroom and closed the door behind me, leaving him to do whatever it was Steve did when he was alone. Probably save kittens from trees just by being in the vicinity. Who really knew?

I changed quickly, but carefully, placing my folded clothes on the closed toilet lid and making sure I wasn't jostling around the holster as I folded it or moving my limbs so far out that I slammed my hands into the edge of the counter. I'd done that last one before. It didn't feel good. The shirt was a little tighter than I'd wanted when I'd plucked it from my dresser. I'd been in a hurry when I'd grabbed it, and too much flowing fabric made it easier for the bad guys to grab a hold of you, but that didn't mean I wasn't seriously considering grabbing another shirt. It hugged the curves of my body a bit too much for the company I was keeping, highlighting a narrow waist and breasts just a shade too big for bralettes to be useful, but too small for impressive cleavage, which irritated me to no end. I had some hips and some breasts, but I wasn't the voluptuous pin-up I wanted to be, and that was annoying. Right now, though, it was a blessing. Just not enough of one. Did they have robes in here? No. Dammit. Of course, they didn't. The shorts I was fine with because it was much easier for me to roundhouse kick someone if I didn't have a bunch of loose cloth tangling up my legs, but this shirt was a problem and it looked like I was going to have to live with it.

I gave myself a good look-see as I brushed the length of my hair. My eyes looked only slightly less tired than I felt. I counted that as a win. However, my lips were pressed together in subconscious agitation and the florescent lights of the bathroom washed my pale skin out to make me look dead. Not so much a win. It had only been about half a day since I'd met Steve, but dealing with Fury, Tannen, my landlord, the deer, traffic, my fucked up brain, and Steve's own emotional needs had left me way more exhausted than it should have, more exhausted than if I'd been in physical combat. I wasn't great when it came to dealing with emotions, anyway. In fact, I was probably on par with a sea cucumber lately, which meant I was out of practice. It made me wonder, once again, why Fury would pick me over someone else. Whatever the reason, right now I needed food and sleep if I was going to be of any use to Steve. Mini fridge, here I come.

With that last thought, I grabbed my folded clothes and hairbrush, exited the bathroom, and immediately stopped dead in my tracks. Steve stood at the foot of his bed, a couple of protein bars sitting next to the open laptop. He was staring down at the screen, once again looking at it like it would spill every last secret it held, so intent upon it that he apparently hadn't heard me open the door or noticed that he was shirtless. His back was to me, letting me see every hard muscle bunch under his skin as he leaned down slightly to run his finger over the mousepad. He wore dark grey sweatpants that made a perfect silhouette of the fullness of his backside.

My mouth suddenly felt like I'd spent a week lost in the Sahara Desert and my full lips suddenly felt like they were cracking from lack of moisture. I licked my lips in an attempt to wet them. It didn't work. If anything, it only made them feel worse. My tongue felt so rough that I could have sworn I was part cat. Ugh, this shit wasn't fair. Why did I, the woman with the years-long dry spell, get assigned to guard the most perfect man in the universe, especially when I had rules about dating charges and coworkers? I suddenly wanted to break my own rules and suggest we go out for a nice dinner.

All thoughts ceased when Steve finally turned around, apparently feeling my eyes on him. If his back was enough to make me rethink my stance on coworker dating, his front was enough to make me rethink the double bed option. His shoulders were broad, his pecs were high and firm, and his stomach had a lovely set of six-pack abs. No hair decorated his chiseled torso, which I found to be both sexy and slightly disappointing. I liked a little bit of hair sometimes, especially if it was that thin line of hair that led from belly button to waistband. It hit me, quite suddenly, that being any kind of disappointed with a body like that in front of me meant that I had something severely wrong with my brain. Oddly enough, it made me feel better that I'd found something I could nitpick about him, which also said something was wrong with my brain. At least I was consistently fucked up.

It took all the willpower I had to draw my gaze away from his nude torso and look him in the eye. I really, really hoped only a second or two had passed and not a full minute, but gawking was gawking, and he'd caught me. I saw embarrassment flash behind his eyes as realization swiftly crashed down on him, followed quickly by a twinge of discomfort and a smidge of humor. Oooh, this was awkward. I subtly rolled my shoulders back to regain my own mental equilibrium and tried my damndest to be casual. Don't focus on how sexy he is, Dani. He's just another ripped dude. There are thousands of guys like him in gyms across the globe. Yep. That was a good lie. I'd believe that for about two minutes on a good day.

"Sorry," I said. "I should have knocked or something to make you were um…" I motioned toward his body, carefully not looking at him as I reached my hand back to scratch the back of my head and search for the appropriate word. Nothing was coming to mind. It was all white noise up there. And wondering how they got those sheets to stay so white.

"Decent?" he offered.

"Well, you're already decent, so asking that would feel redundant," I said, automatically, my hand waving through the air as if trying to get rid of his advice.

Yes! Thank all that was holy! All of my systems may have been dumbed down, but at least my backup wit generator was still working! I was so happy I was actually able to look at him, just him time to see his head dip down, a small smile blossoming on his face.

"I guess 'decent' works, though," I said. He looked up at me, his eyes somehow full of boyish innocence, despite everything he'd been through in his short life. I think that, more than anything, was what turned my brain back on. It was harder for me to swoon over him if I was contemplating the intricacies of his mind. I gently added, "Still, I'm sorry about that."

"It's okay," he replied, that smile of his turning appreciative and a little self-deprecating. "I should have gotten dressed first."

"Yeah," I breathed, the word curling the corners of my mouth, and even to my ears the word was so quiet it almost wasn't a word at all. It was a whisper away from a sigh, a word that came without my permission, and I immediately bit my lip to keep more loose thoughts from slipping out. I'd been so quiet, I doubted he'd even heard me say anything at all, but I don't think it was words that mattered.

His eyes watched my mouth as I spoke, as my bottom lip caught between my teeth, and I saw his eyes change again. The innocence was gone, replaced by dilating pupils and something I didn't want to think about. I ignored it like I had ignored every other thought about those eyes and rolled both of my lips between my teeth to thin them out in what I hoped could be considered disapproval, or at the very least, discomfort.

"Anything?" I asked, nodding my head at the screen behind him in an attempt to change the subject and salvage the situation.

He turned a little to look over his shoulder, as if he'd forgotten that the laptop was even there, before settling his eyes back on me and said, "Not yet."

Jesus, he sounded so forlorn that I wished I'd let him stare at my mouth. I guess I'd distracted him from reality for a moment, and then I'd just had to go and bring it crashing back down around his ears. Not that he wouldn't have done it on his own, anyway. Steve looked down at his hands and I noticed that he was holding a bundled-up white shirt. When did that get there? He turned it over as he looked for the right hole, and I immediately turned away to walk to my bed and put my clothes in my bag. I'd watched him do his half-naked thing once. I wasn't going to do it again. Especially not when he was sad. Especially not after everything that had literally just happened. Especially not ever again.

"He's probably turning in for the night or something," I said, trying to calm his mind.

"Now would be the best time for him to move," Steve replied.

"Not if he wants to be found by you, it's not," I countered.

He didn't say anything to that, so I left him to his thoughts as I pulled my gun from my holster and walked to the head of my bed to stuff it under a pillow. At home, I put my gun in a holster that hung from my headboard, but my apartment was bigger than the hotel room, I didn't have a bedroom door that I could close to give me extra time to pull my gun, and I couldn't guarantee that I could get to my gun before a bad guy if I left it in a holster, so it went under a pillow my head wouldn't be laying on. Now all I needed was a little food and I was effectively ready for bed.

And suddenly, I wasn't, my exhaustion disappearing under the weight of feeling watched. I turned my head and found Steve staring at me. His gaze quickly shifted to the floor, as if he was ashamed of something, or simply unable to meet my eyes for some strange reason.

Was he…had he been checking me out? No, that was impossible. Well, it wasn't impossible, but it felt highly unlikely. Maybe he hadn't seen a woman in so few clothes? No, he lived in New York. There were everyday women that wore less than this. Maybe he'd been caught off guard by me putting my gun under the pillow? Yeah. Yeah, that had to be it. So why did he look like he'd been caught doing something wrong? Ugh, I was too tired and too hungry for this train of thought. Sure, it was natural for me to have an attraction to him. He was Mr. Perfect, Captain America, the guy the girls wanted and the guys wanted to be. I was an agent, a lab experiment, and someone he knew almost nothing about. I guess I was good looking, but I wasn't nearly as good looking as, say, Rebecca or Natasha Romanoff or Peggy Carter. Him being even slightly attracted to me just felt…wrong.

I forced the thoughts of him possibly staring at me to the very back of my head and tried to stomp them to death as I moved past him to grab my bag and settle it back in between the bed and the divider. Food. I needed food.

"What's good in the minibar?" I asked, walking toward the mini fridge. Yep, play it cool, like nothing had happened.

"Depends on what you like," he said from behind me. I heard foil rustle and felt my stomach start to rumble in response. Impatient bitch.

"Things that are bad for me," I replied. Which made sense, considering my dating history and line of work. "Is there anything in there that looks like it tastes like cardboard?"

"No, but that would be bad for you," he responded, sounding a touch confused.

"Au contraire," I said, butchering the French language as I rummaged through the mini fridge and all the delightfully fatty snacks. "Generally, if a pre-packaged snack tastes like cardboard, it's good for you."

I settled on a couple of protein bars of my own, ones that said they were chocolatey but that probably tasted more like chalk, and lamented in my dietary restrictions. I just wanted a Hershey bar! I swear I'd work off the calories and wouldn't get hooked on the sugar like it was cocaine. I promised! After one last longing glance at a 3 Musketeers bar, I closed the fridge door and turned around, only to find Steve leaning against the divider, his arms crossed over his chest, making his biceps bulge under his sleeves and his shoulders strain at the seams. An open protein bar was in one hand and he chewed slowly as he listened to me. I very carefully chose to ignore literally everything about that picture except for him listening to me. Hell, maybe I should ignore that, too, and pretend to talk to myself. No, it wouldn't help.

"See, you're probably still getting used to not having crappy food all the time, but most people my age were born with Twinkies in their hands, so we just know delicious, terrible sugar. This," I dramatically pointed one of my own bars at him, "has no delicious sugar in it so it tastes like packaging material."

Humor glittered in Steve's eyes, spreading over his face until a smile broke over his lips. I forged ahead. His laughter would not stop my bitching.

"This is probably why I have no soul. Every time I eat it, I die a little inside," I said.

His smile faltered and his eyebrows knitted together in bemusement, only the barest hint of laughter shining through.

"You seem like a good person to me," he said.

"Uh-uh," I said, shaking my head, the motion so small and fast he might not have seen it if he weren't looking directly at me. Pulling my arm back to my side, I added, "All goodness in me was destroyed by the malevolence of rice cakes."

That brought the smile back, and this time, he was the one who shook his head, arching his eyebrows in amused rumination as he focused on peeling the wrapper back from his food.

"You would not have done well in the thirties," he said before taking a bite.

His eyes settled back on me as he chewed, looking almost anticipant. I raised my eyebrows at him expectantly, my eyes flitting back and forth between his face and nothing in particular.

"You were expecting an argument?" I asked.

He frowned for a moment and shook his head, quickly chewing and swallowing the bite he'd taken.

"More like hoping for more of your tirade," he said, just barely managing to keep a half-smile at bay.

I gaped at him, a high-pitched, indignant sound squeaking out from the top of my throat as if the words had been cut off by my ire.

"You wound me, sir. I am not a fiddle to be played," I said, leaning back to look him up and down in pretend disgust. Quickly, before he could even think of starting to look contrite, I added, "But seriously, the food back then sounds like it was a funeral for taste buds."

A grin spread over his face, his immediate relief from Dani wrath and his mirth that his wish had come true washing over him in a wave. I smiled back at him, happy that my brain wasn't working against me anymore and that we were actually having some kind of, gasp, fun, and moved around him so I could sit on my bed. Tonight might be the only night I was going to get to be lazy on this mission and I was going to fucking bathe in it.

"It wasn't too bad," he replied as he turned to watch me climb onto the stacked mattress knee-first.

"Are you sure about that? Because it sounds like a nightmare."

Settling myself in the middle of the bed, I crossed my legs and set my minifridge loot in my lap. Steve followed suit, only he was much more graceful than clunky little me and sat on the edge of his bed, his feet flat on the floor and his elbows on his knees.

"We didn't know anything else. Well, I didn't," he said over the sound of my metal wrapper popping open. I was listening, and he knew it, but I was hungry. "And I would say the treatment for anemia was the nightmare."

"What was the treatment for anemia?" I asked, breaking off a piece of my protein bar and popping it in my mouth.

"Barely cooked liver," he said, matter-of-factly. "A lot of it."

"Ew!" I exclaimed around my mouthful of suddenly much tastier food. I wouldn't normally talk with my mouth full, but that deserved some very vocal recognition.

"Yeah," he said, the word pulling his lips into a smile. I wasn't sure if the hint of sadness there was from missing his time or from the fact that he'd had to eat nearly raw liver at all. Maybe a little bit of both? He took a bite of his food as I swallowed mine, and I took a moment to study the bar in my hand. Sure, it had almost no sugar and tasted a little bit like licking a blackboard, but compared to raw fucking liver, it was gourmet chocolate.

"I am never complaining about health food again," I muttered.

"Yes, you will," Steve said knowingly. Wow, did he have friends who complained about this shit, too, or did he just have me pegged? Or did he know that humans have a nasty habit of forgetting almost everything, like when people get a terrible hangover and say they'll never drink again only to go out drinking two weeks later? Probably all of the above.

"Yes, I will," I amended, "but that's disgusting! How often did you have to eat it?"

"Every day," he replied.

"Eugh. Gag noise," I said softly, making him chuckle. "When did you have to start eating that? When you were a kid?"

"Yeah, when I was about seven or eight. They came out with a liver extract when I was ten, so thankfully I didn't have to eat it anymore. I never got used to the needles, though," he replied.

"You got it injected?" I asked. Boy, did I need Captain Obvious to come slap me on the back of the head.

"It was better than drinking it and my mom was able to get needles," he said, dutifully ignoring my idiocy. How nice of him.

"Having a nurse for a mother must've been pretty great," I said.

"I don't think I'd have survived without her," he responded, his eyes glazing over slightly with fondness and a hint of grief. "She was always reading medical books. It was how she found out about the liver so quickly. She was ahead of the curve."

"She sounds like a badass. Must be where you got it from," I said.

I broke off a big piece of my protein bar and ungracefully shoved it in my mouth. A dainty princess, I was not. Steve didn't seem to give a shit about my inelegance, instead opting to watch his hand as it spun his bar around and around in a circle of discomfort.

"I wouldn't say we were badasses," he said.

"Of course, you wouldn't. That's why other people say it for you," I replied, once again around a mouthful of food.

Dammit, why did I take such a big bite?! If my dad saw me talking with my mouth full, he'd pop me on the back of the head. I was halfway expecting him to materialize because he felt a disturbance in the Table Etiquette Force. Steve's voice cut through my thoughts, drawing me back to the real world and how his shoulders had hunched in on themselves a little.

"Sometimes I wish they wouldn't," he said.

I swallowed hard and, in a voice dripping with puzzlement, asked, "Why?

"Because I'm not badass. She wasn't. We were just doing what needed to be done," he replied. He took a bite of his food as if to say that was the end of it for him, the only thing he would ever believe and that his side of the conversation was over. Or maybe I was projecting.

"The thing that makes most people badass is that they are normal people doing what needs to get done, but the thing that needs to get done is hard enough that some people would quit at a starting line," I said. His eyes flicked up to me at that, as if he hadn't expected that to be my reply. "Cool fight moves and kicking the asses of bad guys makes someone a badass, too, but it's mostly what you said. Your humility in it all just adds to the badassery. And please don't get a big head because I said that."

He flashed one of those charming little half-smiles at me, gratitude and warmth radiating outward until his shoulders eased, and said, "I won't."

"Good. Your helmet wouldn't fit and you kind of need that," I joked.

A breath of a laugh turned the smile to a grin, the kind that made your toes tingle in their shoes and your cheeks warm in a cool breeze. Then again, it seemed all his grins were like that. Or I was suddenly thinking they were all like that because I'd seen him shirtless. Pick a fucking lane, Dani. I tore my eyes away from his face to concentrate on ripping apart the last piece of my protein bar, listening to two foil wrappers crinkle in tandem as I ate a bite. I could feel his eyes on me again, like I had earlier, just this heavy weight of an intense gaze on my body, but this time I refused to look up. I knew who was going to be staring at me, so what was the point?

"I guess that makes you a badass, too," he said, the hint of the smile still lacing his voice.

I couldn't help but chuckle at that and tried to not choke on my food in the process. Swallowing hard, I shook my head.

"Nah, they pay me for this," I quipped. I shook my head a little again and shrugged, adding, "I'm not normal people, so I don't think I fit the criteria."

"Because of your powers?" he asked, his tone suddenly humorless and now sounding like he was ready to go into a big "your powers don't make you a monster" speech.

"Because of my personality. Anyone who acts like I do can't be normal. Total weirdo," I replied.

There. Maybe that would soothe his fears that I thought of myself as a monster. Freak, yes? Monster, no. Okay, monster, maybe. I ate the last piece of my first bar and reached for the second one, suddenly thinking about King Kong and Fay Wray, except King Kong didn't eat Fay Wray in the movie like I would be munching down on the protein bar. See? How was that not the thought process of a weird person?

"Everyone is weird in some way, Dani," Steve said.

I paused in my mastication for a split second. I think that was the first time he'd ever said my name. How apt that it was in a conversation about being an oddball. Swallowing quickly, I looked at him, a single eyebrow raised in question.

"How are you weird?"

"I signed up to have a scientist experiment on me so I could fight in a war. I guess you could say that's weird," he replied.

I was thinking more along the lines of dancing in a rave club in see-through PVC clothes and white underwear while wearing a fedora rather than being so full of "come at me, bro" that someone refused to sit out one of the biggest wars in history, but he had a point.

With a single nod, I said, "Fair enough."

"A lot of my friends could be considered weird, but that doesn't mean they're not normal people just trying to do what's right," he pointed out.

Okay, maybe he had a couple of points. Bruce Banner was a badass scientist who happened to turn green when he got angry. Weird. Tony Stark was a certified genius that flew around in a metal suit shooting lasers out of his hands. Weird. Sam Wilson chose to fly with actual wings rather than a plane. Weird and kind of death-wishy. Wanda Maximoff also chose to be experimented on for her country. Thor was a Norse god. Yeah, he had a point.

I studied him for a moment, somehow surprised that he'd broken out legitimate insightfulness on a stupid passing comment, and he studied me back, blue eyes roving over my face until they locked on my eyes. This was getting a little too serious for my liking.

"Did you get this old-man wisdom before or after you joined the Army?" I teased.

A smile curled his lips, but his eyes weren't in it, still serious with thought, and now holding a hint of loss for a time long past.

"Would you believe me if I said I wasn't sure?" he asked.

"Yes, because I'm pretty sure you're incapable of telling a lie," I replied.

"And you know that because you read my file?" he asked.

"And your general vibe, yeah," I responded, shrugging. I ate a piece of sorely neglected food, and my stomach thanked me for catching up with the program.

"What's my general vibe?"

Jesus, how did he manage to sound both genuinely curious and teasing at the same time? Also, how was he so good at flipping off his serious switch? Was he doing this for my benefit because he could tell I was trying to keep it breezy or did he genuinely want the relief? I had so many questions about this man and I doubted any of them would get answered.

"So honest you wouldn't steal a French Fry off another person's plate," I said.

"And you would?" he asked, raising his eyebrows at me.

"Let's just say I've had more than one fork jabbed at my hand in my lifetime," I replied. I felt a bit ashamed of it now that I was sitting in front of Mr. Morality, which was kind of weird since it was only their food and not, say, their watch, but I guess stealing was stealing when the eyes of integrity personified was literally staring you down. Quickly, I added, "But to be fair, I offered my own food to them in penance."

"You asked for forgiveness rather than permission," he said, making it a statement rather than a question.

"Yeah, pretty much. I don't do it as much as I used to," I said. Then again, I didn't have a lot of people I could steal food from these days. Being a spy could be very lonely, seeing as how being friendly with people outside of work meant I could blow future covers. That might also explain why I was so fucking hypersexual right now. I didn't date coworkers, but I couldn't date outside of work, no matter how much I joked about swiping right on Tinder, or how much I wanted to despite dating sites being garbage. I wasn't going to tell him any of that, though, so I lifted up my partially eaten protein bar and said, "I eat mostly cardboard now."

I ripped off another piece and ate it, for emphasis as much for my own nutritional needs.

Steve smiled at me, another one of those devastatingly charming little things, and said, "You can steal my fries anytime. As long as you don't offer me cardboard."

I glanced at the open protein bar in his hand, the same kind that I was eating, and narrowed my eyes at it before casting my gaze back up to his. He flicked his eyes down and immediately started chuckling. Oh, good. He got my point.

"It's not stealing if you give me permission," I said as he took a bite of his own food. "Also, don't tempt me, because I will take you up on that offer and we will both regret it because I will offer you something better than health food grossness."

Why did I feel like we were slipping toward dangerous innuendo territory? Or was it just my brain connecting those dots into the shape of something salacious when really the picture was much more innocent from all other perspectives? Maybe I was just tired and being an idiot. Let's go with that.

"Like what?" he asked, once again sounding sincerely interested in the answer, a new smile blossoming in his face.

"I dunno," I said, raising one side of my mouth in thought as I tore into the bar again. "Ice cream sundae, maybe? Extra hot fudge to make it sin in a bowl."

I curled my lip at my bite of chalky, wannabe food, sad that it wasn't fudge, and ate it. At least it wasn't raw liver.

"Sin in a bowl?" Steve asked, sounding like I'd just told him cats could fly. I mean, they could if you put tin foil under their feet and wanted to be mean, but that wasn't the point here.

I looked up, zipping my eyes between him and a spot of air directly over the middle of his bed, and said, "Yeah. You've never heard that term before?"

"Can't say that I have," he replied, his eyebrows lightly pinching together, one corner of his mouth quirking up as if in response to mine.

I pinched my eyebrows back at him in disbelief, my jaw dropping a little.

"Really? How? Sin on a stick, sin on a bun, sin on a something, you've never heard any of it?" I asked.

"No," he replied. "I'd remember hearing something like that."

"Okay, maybe you can lie, because there's no way you haven't heard that term."

He held his hands up as if in surrender, the last of his protein bar held between his fingertips, and said, "I swear to you, I have never heard someone say that in my life."

As his hands fell back into his lap, my jaw dropped into mine and I fully gaped at him, my eyes wide. I knew I was being overdramatic, but it was fun to tease him, and from the way he was trying to control his face so he didn't break out into a grin, I'd say he was enjoying my shenanigans.

I cranked my jaw back up to where it should naturally go and said, "Wow, am I gonna teach you some things."

With that, he let go of what control he still had and flashed another toe-curling grin at me. "I look forward to it."

A little laugh rolled out of my throat on a breath of air, bringing a smile to my face as it grazed my lips. I could not believe how playful he was being right now! Or at all! Maybe exhaustion and stress had just pushed everything into being disproportionately funny for both of us. I'd been thinking that stress had been the root of our two-man comedy routine ever since we'd gotten on the road, but a need for sleep must be playing a role, too, if a guy with such a reputation for seriousness was being this playful. Right?

Steve's eyes flicked to my lips when I smiled, and I watched his emotions change almost faster than I could name them as his blue gaze roved over my face. He finally settled on an expression of gentle kindness, but the slight tension in his shoulders and eyebrows said it was kindness laced with a twinge of discomfort as he locked his eyes on mine.

"We should get some sleep," he said.

I looked at the clock, the white numbers shining bright on the nightstand, and found that it was getting pretty late. We'd been talking for a while and Steve still had to finish what little was left of his food. He'd been munching steadily during our conversation, taking small bites here and there so he wasn't a fucking Neanderthal talking with food in his mouth like I was, so while it won him the Etiquette Award, it lost him the Fastest Eater trophy. I don't think he would care either way.

"Yeah, we should," I agreed.

I gathered what little trash I had out of my lap and stood up, immediately, almost instinctively, holding my hand out for the little foil wrapper Steve had carefully placed next to him on the bed.

"I'll toss that for you," I said, eyeing the wrapper.

He looked down, following my eyeline, for a split second before looking back up at me, looking far more innocent than a grown man with those shoulders had any right to.

"I've got it, but thank you," he replied, being polite, yet dismissive.

I'm sure he did, but I was going that way anyway and it would just be flat out better to get the trash off the bed sooner rather than later. I raised my eyebrows at him disapprovingly, damn near in challenge, staring him down until yet another one of those adorable little half-smiles tugged at the corner of his mouth. He knew he'd lost. And now he knew that I was also stupidly stubborn.

"Thank you," he said appreciatively as he set the wrapper in my hand.

"No problem," I replied.

I turned, taking the few steps it took to get to the trash can that was pushed up against the jut in the wall, and turned to look back before the little foil wrappers even hit the can when I heard the distinct sound of a comforter rustling. Now that we weren't talking each other's ears off, Steve had taken it upon himself to set the laptop on the nightstand, probably so he could stay up all night and watch the screen like a hawk.

"I put an alert on it," I said to his back. He turned to look at me, a frown pulling at his lips and his eyebrows raised in confusion. Maybe I should explain a little better. "An alarm will sound if a camera catches him. I should have told you that earlier."

Maybe he wouldn't have been staring at his without his shirt on if I had told him earlier. Way to go, Dani.

His lips parted and a tiny nod brought his chin down a toward his chest in understanding, a shadow of a smile finding his face as a thought brought his gaze to the floor.

"It's okay," he said, looking back up at me. "We've been a little busy. Thank you for telling me now."

Not one to usually argue with someone when they were forgiving me, I said, "You're welcome."

With that parting comment, I left him to finish eating and to do Steve stuff while I washed my face and brushed my teeth of whatever they put in protein bars. Sadness? The hopes and dreams of being delicious? Who truly knew? I certainly didn't! I barely knew what the hell I was doing here, sitting across the room from Steve Rogers, chatting it up like we were buddies and not like he was a national hero that I'd just seen shirtless. And it seemed like the more time I spent with him, the more I was picking up on things that shouldn't be there, especially given the circumstances. He seemed like a guy who had his shit together, not like someone who would fall quickly for a pretty girl in the middle of a firefight. He wasn't a headcase like I was, so why did I keep feeling like his gaze was getting heavier with each glance? Was it wishful thinking or was it the real deal? Or had I finally reached my mental breakdown? That was a very real possibility, too.

I didn't know. I really didn't. What I did know was that whatever was going on was ridiculous and needed to stop. I needed to stop noticing how boyish he looked when his eyes got wide or how that contrasted so nicely with the breadth of his shoulders, or how his sense of humor wasn't talked about enough, or how his wit and intelligence were just as sexy as his abs, or how his laugh was liquid gold. But I also needed to be careful to not swing back in the direction of bitchiness, because I was riding that line pretty hard, too. The more I thought about how much I needed to get my shit together, the more I hated the fact that I was even here to begin with. Wanda Maximoff may have been inexperienced, but she was powerful and far less likely to fuck everything up with anger and lust. At the very least, we surely could have pulled one of his more experienced friends back from one of their missions to help him, but Fury had just had to pick me for this. When I got back, I was cornering him in his office and asking him why he'd decided to send the emotional baggage with combat boots into enemy territory with an Ivy League-intelligent beefcake.

I finished my nighttime ritual, dried off the toothbrush the best I could before I shoved it and everything else back in my toiletry case, and zipped up the bag before gathering it up and walking back into the bedroom. I figured I wouldn't have to knock this time around since he was already dressed. I figured correctly. He was just pulling his hand out of his duffel bag, holding his own toothbrush and toothpaste, as I walked out. This time he turned at the sound of the door opening, so at least I knew his mind was still in the room with me and not out wandering Pittsburg. Thank goodness. Who knew what people in Pittsburg got up to at this time of night? Knife fights? Roller derby where the losers were eaten by killer chihuahuas? I didn't even want to think about the horrors that his mind could come across on the streets.

I moved toward my bed, not saying anything as I managed to get myself stuck in the land of Make Believe: Pittsburg Edition as he silently walked past me into the bathroom. He looked pretty thoughtful himself, but from what I'd heard about him, hell, from what I'd seen from him today alone, that wasn't uncommon. Or good. Well, the good news was I was back in the room. The bad news was I was worried he'd just ended up where I hadn't wanted him to go and I couldn't do anything about it.

Thinking about being stuck ringside with Steve at a chihuahua knife fight, I stuffed my hygiene supplies in my personal duffel and closed it. Honestly, if any dog was going to get into a knife fight, it was those feisty little things. These were the thoughts of someone who should have gone to sleep a long fucking time ago, which, to me, meant that everything up to this point had to be hallucinations caused by sleep deprivation. Never mind that I wasn't truly sleep deprived. It's what I was going with and it meant my happy ass needed to get into bed.

I padded my way around the end of the bed, lifted the comforter and sheet, and had just put my knee on the mattress when Steve opened the bathroom door. Well, that was fast. Or was it? How long had I been standing there thinking about dogs remaking the Sharks vs the Jets fight? Probably too long.

"You alright?" Steve asked.

I blinked at him, finding him eyeing me in concern as he put his toothbrush and toothpaste back in his bag.

"What?" I asked, bewildered. Of course, I was alright. Why wouldn't he think I was? Realization smacked me in the nose. I don't think I'd moved since he'd opened the door and I'm pretty sure I'd just gone all glassy eyed on him for seemingly no goddamn reason. Today had not been kind to my poor mind. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Just thinking."

I slid into my bed, pulling the covers over me as he set his bag between his bed and the window.

"About what?" he asked, his long legs bringing him back towards me.

"Nothing special," I replied.

He lifted his covers, and like the annoyingly tall person he was, easily slid into bed without having to actually climb or lift himself on his toes.

"Seemed like you were pretty invested to me," he said as he sank down beneath the plush comforter.

"Invested does not mean interesting, Steve," I countered. I watched him as he drew his arms out from under the covers to drape them over his stomach. I thought it was grossly unfair to be able to sleep with just your arms out and not get cold, but I guess he just had to be all kinds of special. "It was just stupid, tired musings."

"Those are the best kind," he said, softly, almost fondly.

He sounded like he'd stayed up many a night, letting his mind come up with asinine ideas that would never go anywhere except the space between friends. He sounded like he missed it. Unfortunately, it was like he said earlier; we needed to get some sleep. Moreover, I really didn't want him to hear my inane thoughts, because some of them might be very telling about my feelings on him, this mission, and life in general. Neither of us needed to know any of that.

Flashing him a sassy, yet tired half-smile, I settled myself further under my blankets and said, "Goodnight Steve."

Hoping to get the last word, because I was petty like that sometimes, I wriggled my hand out from under the covers to reach for the switch on the lamp, only to find Steve that had beaten me to the punch, my hand coming mere inches from touching his. Damn over-the-covers people are on top of everything! Literally! I pulled my hand back as I locked eyes with Steve, cocooning myself in as he smiled at me like I was being endearing. Glad I wasn't the only one hallucinating.

"Goodnight, Dani," he echoed.

The light went out and I followed its lead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry about how long it's taking to get the chapters out! Work has been giving me a lot of hours, a lot of them weird times, so I haven't had much time to write. Thank you for being patient and I hope you enjoyed this chapter.


	5. Nightmare

A gunshot rang through the air, bouncing off old concrete walls like they were trampolines only to hit the ear like a railroad spike. A woman screamed, a high, anguished shriek that somehow drowned out the deafening echo of exploded gunpowder. Men started giving orders under her screams, their voices raised to be heard over her the only indication that they heard her at all, her agony ignored until one man turned his calculating gaze on her. On me. His smirk of triumph was ice water down my spine, and fire rose up to burn the cold away. Flames filled my vision, so hot that the base of them was white, light yellow tips flickering at the man's skin. His howl of pain rose as the woman's died. More men joined him in a haunting song as the concrete walls charred and crumbled. Bright green and gold eyes flashed open inches away from my face, tears and rage spilling over thick, black lashes. Yellow light glowed deep within their pupils, spreading to eat away the color, until even humanity was lost to the hunger of that otherworldly light.

Strong hands grabbed my shoulders and shook me until the harsh, inhuman eyes dimmed from my vision. My eyes popped open, panic setting in, and I forced my power into those hands, pulled them off me, and slammed the person they were attached to into the ceiling.

Steve's voice called my name through the dark, sounding too strained for comfort. Oh gods. We were under attack and I hadn't heard a damn thing! My hand automatically pulled the gun out from under the pillow before I clicked the bedside lamp on. Steve's bed was empty, the covers thrown back as if he'd been in a rush. I should have heard any struggle he would have put up, and I didn't hear one now. I scanned the room, my gun at the ready, and found no one there. What the hell was going on? I grabbed the comforter to throw it off of me, intent on locating my missing charge, when Steve's voice calling my name stopped me. It was coming from above me.

I pointed the gun at the floor and looked up, finding Steve pinned to the ceiling. It had been his hands on my shoulders, shaking me awake. That's why his bed was abandoned. Oh, shit.

"Fuck!" I exclaimed.

I clicked the safety on the gun and loosened up on my power, releasing him from his spot on the ceiling and carefully lowering him to the floor. As soon as his feet were on solid ground, my mouth started frantically spewing out apologies. Of all the things you were supposed to do as a bodyguard, hurting your charge was not one of them, especially when they were a good person.

"Oh my god! I'm so sorry! I thought you were someone else! I thought we were under attack! Are you okay?! God, I didn't mean to do that. I'm so sorry!"

Steve rested one knee on my bed and grabbed hold of my shoulders again. His hands were warm and solid, and they pulled me from my panicked apology just enough for me to notice that he was taking deep breaths. I'd pinned him so hard that he hadn't been able to breathe. No wonder he'd sounded like he was in distress. He had been. And no wonder he hadn't said anything other than my name. He hadn't been able to draw enough breath to say anything but two fucking syllables. Goddammit, I was an idiot! I could've killed him!

"Dani, it's okay," he said, his voice soft yet firm. He lowered his face to catch my frightened gaze, letting me see the sincerity of his words in his eyes as he repeated, "It's okay."

I stared at him, trying to slow down my pounding heart, trying to force the fear that I'd hurt him out of my system. Wait, what was going on? Why had he woken me?

"What happened?" I asked, my voice steadier than I expected it to be. It was breathy, because apologizing without stopping to inhale left you a little breathless, but it was steady.

"You were having a nightmare," he explained gently. "It sounded pretty bad."

Fear tried to rise again, and my throat worked hard to swallow it down. I remembered now, and my almost hysterical worry about hurting him made way more sense. It's really hard to shake an emotion when you still have one foot stuck in it. And that nightmare was bad, sticking to me like tar so I dreamed it over and over again, always ending in me waking up covered in cold sweat and tears. It wasn't as bad as it used to be, thankfully, but apparently it was still bad enough to wake Steve and then have him wake me. The question was there in his eyes, this inquiry of what the hell I was dreaming that could cause me to do whatever it was I had done. Gods, I didn't want to know what I'd said or done in my sleep. Even if it was just tossing and turning, which I seriously doubted was the case, I didn't want to know what I'd done to wake him.

"Oh," I replied. My voice actually sounded normal. Yippee. "I'm okay. It was just a bad dream. They happen to the best of us. It was nothing."

"It sounded like something," he said.

His hands were still heavy on my shoulders, as if he didn't want to let go until he knew I was okay. I was so not okay. He'd find that out soon enough, but not now. Not at…what time was it? I spared a glance at the alarm clock. It was two in the morning. Yeah, he wasn't going to find out shit at two in the morning. Hell, I didn't want him to find out at all, but he was going to read my file eventually. Whether I was okay or not, he needed to think I was, so I forced my face to be as comforting as possible, which was the exact same thing he was trying to do for me.

His blue eyes were filled with a mixture of concern and reassurance, and once I gave him the full weight of my gaze, the concern only heightened, leaving him looking like he was ready to give me a bear hug if I said I needed one. I wasn't fooling him. Somehow, he knew that my nightmare wasn't just a random bad dream. Now I was starting to get curious as to what I'd done in my sleep. Not curious enough to ask, but curious nonetheless.

"It was nothing," I lied, shaking my head a little. "Really. Get back to bed and try to get some sleep."

His eyes searched my face, obviously dissatisfied with what they saw because he didn't move. I wasn't exactly complaining because the longer he sat there, the longer he held me in his hands, and I was kind of enjoying that. It was an odd feeling, me wanting him to keep holding me. I wasn't usually like that. Hell, some of my past boyfriends had said the lack of cuddling had actually turned them off. I couldn't help it if they were smothering me while I was fully invested in Back to the Future. But something in my mind, some small part of me at the back of my head, said that I wouldn't mind being smothered by Steve while I was watching…anything. It said that the weight of his hands, his body, would be welcome in almost any scenario. It said there was a spark between us that I'd never felt with anyone else.

I immediately punched that thought right in its metaphysical face. A spark between us? HA! After knowing each other for only a few hours? Yeah right. I had a better chance of there being a spark between me and a rock, and I was more tired than I thought if I believed I could feel a spark between myself and a relative stranger, no matter how incredible he may seem.

Still, I couldn't shake the feeling of wanting those arms to envelope me, to hold me close and chase the nightmares away while I slept. I could give up being a pufferfish for one night. Suddenly, I was aware of Steve calling my name. Again.

"Dani? Dani, are you in there? Are you okay? Talk to me, Agent Ryan," he said, slightly shaking my shoulders as he said the last.

I blinked at him and drew a deep breath into my lungs, giving up any pretense of being comforting. With a shake of my head, I let the breath out, surprised at my own thoughts and actions. Since when did I share any kind of spark with my charges? Since never, that's when. There must be something wrong with me if I was so okay with the idea that I'd let myself fall into a daydream about losing my spines with him. Maybe the nightmare had affected me more than I'd realized. Or maybe it was two in the morning and I was delusional.

"I'm fine. I'm just tired," I said. I furrowed my eyebrows at him then. "Did you just call me Agent Ryan? After all you did so you could call me Dani?"

A small half smile tugged at one side of his mouth, making him look almost boyish and innocent, and I saw some of his worry melt away. "Dani wasn't doing the job."

I smiled back at him, a real smile, but it was tired. The panic and adrenaline had finally left my system so that nothing but exhaustion remained.

"Dani worked," I said, still smiling. "I was just too tired to say anything. Can we go back to sleep now?"

Once again, Steve studied me, and this time he was at least tentatively okay with what he saw. His hands loosened, slipping down my upper arms for a mere moment before he released me. My body immediately wanted to be held again, as if his hands were all that were keeping me together and upright. They were definitely all that had been holding me upright. Almost as soon as his fingers left my skin, I was lowering myself back down onto the bed, one hand moving to put the gun back under its pillow while the other tried to pull the covers up. The latter didn't work so well since Steve was still kneeling on them.

Seeing that I was, in fact, tired, Steve nodded and stood, letting me pull the blankets up to my chin.

"Yeah. We can go back to sleep," he said.

There was a hint of exhaustion in his voice now, too, as if, now that he'd calmed me down, he was allowed to be tired. There was something else in his tone, though, some small, underlying emotion that sounded dangerously like affection. I didn't have much time to think about it because darkness began eating at my vision, and sleep took me before Steve even turned off the lights.

The smell of freshly brewed coffee gently coaxed me out of my sleep. I took a deep breath in through my nose, taking in the rich aroma as I opened my eyes and rolled over to look at Steve's side of the room. He wasn't there, his bed neatly made, the comforter spread so tight over the top of the mattress that I knew I could bounce a quarter off it. Sunlight was gently pressing against the veil of white curtains, almost begging to be let in, begging to caress the room with soft, golden rays. My eyes found the clock on the bedside table. It was almost eight thirty in the morning. I'd been able to get in five more hours of sleep, all of them dreamless. With a silent thanks to the deities above, I sat up and rubbed at my eyes. It was only then that my tired mind noticed that something was missing from the bedside table. The laptop was gone.

Panic gripped me for a split second before reason kicked me in the ass. Steve was awake, which meant he probably had the laptop and was either staring it down like it owed him money or was using it to contact people who could help us find Barnes. Let's hear it for being awake enough to be reasonable. I ran my fingers through my hair to smooth down some of the bedhead I no doubt had, then stood to face the day.

I shuffled around the barrier of the room and found Steve sitting on the couch with a cup of coffee in his right hand and the laptop resting on the ottoman. He was leaned forward, his elbows on his thighs and his left hand fisted over his lips, propping up his chin. He was staring at the screen as if he were silently interrogating it, his eyebrows furrowed over determined eyes. He'd had close to the same look in the car yesterday, but now there was an underlying patience, the knowledge that he could sit and glare at the screen all day until it finally gave him what he wanted.

I leaned my shoulder against the fake rice paper barrier, crossed my arms over my chest almost exactly like he'd done last night, and studied him like he'd undoubtedly studied me. Nothing in his face or stance changed, and after a few long minutes of silence, I just couldn't take it anymore. Did he not remember what I'd told him last night? He didn't have to stare at the screen. The laptop would notify us if it got anything.

"You're going to go cross-eyed if you keep doing that," I said, my voice gravelly with leftover sleep.

Steve looked up, his eyes widening in surprise as his hand fell away from his jawline. I knew that he hadn't seen me standing there, but I didn't know all of his other senses had shut off, too. He should have heard the rustle of sheets or the fall of my footsteps, which were nowhere near quiet in the morning. I was a lumbering troll before coffee, without even a hint of my usual daytime grace.

Ugh, I hated it when other people proved Fury right. It was one thing when he did it, but when other people did it, it just seemed like ego-stroke-overkill. But Fury had been right, If I hadn't been sure of that earlier, I definitely was now. The superman hadn't heard me move around this small room, and if he had, he'd been so wrapped up in his own personal crusade that he'd never thought it might be a bad guy shuffling around. Never mind that we were on the top floor and a bad guy wouldn't shuffle. Someone with enough skill could get to the window and jimmy it open enough to get in if they really wanted to, and he would have been oblivious. Steve really did need someone to protect him right now.

Steve placed his coffee on the ottoman and stood, being the gentleman he was raised to be, standing when a woman walked into the room. That or I'd startled him to his feet. He rounded the ottoman to get closer to me, making it at least appear that him standing up was a deliberate choice.

"I didn't realize you were awake," he said. "How are you feeling?"

He stopped just in front of me as he asked his question. There was a new tension to his right arm, and if I didn't know any better, I'd have said he wanted to reach out and touch me. It seemed he was still worried about me after last night's little debacle. I gave him points for that. I also gave me points for being this observant before I'd had so much as a sip of coffee. I guess being in the field again was good for my morning routine.

"I feel like a just woke up," I replied, ignoring the obvious unspoken question.

"No more nightmares?"

There it was. He tipped his chin to his chest, helping him better focus his eyes on mine. He was standing too close, and now I couldn't escape him or that damn dream unless I answered him. I knew that my secrecy about it wouldn't matter for much longer, but I wanted to keep him in the dark for as long as I could. Bad, but true.

I shook my head. "No, not that I can remember."

In an attempt to evade his questions and obtain a more alert state, a moved past him to go to the dry bar and the pot of coffee that waited for me. I poured coffee into a meager paper cup and curled my lip. They couldn't give you bigger cups? Really? I needed big doses of java, not these piddly shot glasses. Within my own head, I let out a sigh and let it go. There was nothing I could do about the cup size. It just meant I'd have to get up more often to get my caffeine fix. I was just a lazy bitch, was all.

"Anything from the scan so far?" I asked, as much to get information as to get him to stop asking me questions.

I kept my back to Steve as I started doctoring my coffee. It was an exact science for me, since shitty coffee needed more help than good coffee. I'd dumped four packets of real sugar into the cup and added one of those little creamer cups before Steve responded.

"No. Nothing yet. He must've gone back into hiding," Steve said.

I could tell from his voice that he'd settled himself back on the couch and I knew without turning around that he'd be staring at the computer screen. This was going to be a recurring thing then, was it?

After adding another creamer cup, I grabbed one of the hollow, brown coffee stirrers, the ones that couldn't even stir a thimble of water, then grabbed three more. Using only one of those useless plastic tubes left all of the sugar on the bottom of the cup and made the coffee taste like shit. I pressed all of the stirrers together to make a little square before vigorously swirling them through the coffee. Once I was done and the coffee looked decent, I sucked the excess droplets from the tips of the brown plastic and tossed them into the small trashcan that sat next to the dry bar.

I took a sip, then carefully turned so as not to splash hot coffee everywhere, not even turning all the way around before my suspicions about Steve's location were confirmed. I walked over to him, sidestepping my way between the ottoman and the couch to settle myself into the cushions to his left. He'd barely looked up at me as I sat down, once again so wrapped up in the computer screen that he couldn't see the world beyond it. If he hadn't been a superhuman, I'd have said he really would screw up his eyesight if he kept staring like that.

"It'll make a sound when we get a hit," I reminded him, gently. "You don't have to keep staring at the screen like that."

He turned his head slightly to look at me from the corner of his eye, then sighed, resigned to the truth. I guess staring was giving him something to do and I'd just taken it away from him. Boy, I was all kinds of helpful. He slumped back against the couch, which was easier for him to do since he was tall. My feet would have a hard time touching the floor if I did that. Freaking giants. I always got stuck with giants.

"I just…" he motioned at the screen with his right hand, his coffee still abandoned on the ottoman. "I thought he would show up sooner than this. I thought we'd have had something by now. Anything. But it's radio silence."

Without thinking about it, I patted his thigh, a little too high up for my comfort, and probably his. If I'd been thinking about it, I'd have aimed for his knee, but because my body decided to leave my brain behind, I'd ended up patting the middle of his muscled thigh. Batting a thousand this morning, aren't you, Dani? I stomped on the part of my brain that was calling me an idiot, stomped even harder on the part of my brain that was trying to focus on how hard his muscles were, and attempted to give him sympathetic eyes. It is a real task to give sympathetic eyes to someone who's also trying to not worry about you when your brain is going in five different directions, but I think I managed to pull it off.

"We'll find him," I said, removing my hand from his leg like I'd planned everything out. "It might just take a while. Why do you think I booked the room for two weeks?"

"You don't really think it will take two weeks to find him, do you?" he asked. "Even with this scan?"

His brows beetled over his eyes, so much so that I wanted to take my thumb and smooth out the little creases the expression made. I didn't. What I did do was shrug and take a sip of coffee. It was hot, but it didn't burn my tongue. Then again, nothing did anymore. It was one of the perks of having a power that required heat resistance.

"I don't know," I said once I'd swallowed. "Wilson's been looking for him for how long and the only thing we got was one photo of him at the memorial? It could take months before he shows up again. I don't want it to, but it's a definite possibility."

Gods knew I didn't want it to take months. I didn't think my mind could handle spending months alone with Steve. Apparently, it could barely handle spending a day alone with him.

Steve slowly rubbed his hand over his face, as if he didn't want me to see his exasperation. I didn't exactly blame him. What he was dealing with was very personal, and having other people see that pain could really suck. I should know. I did everything I could so people would never see my pain, going so far as to hide my powers and have Fury bury my file. But here Steve was, his pain an open book whether he meant it to be one or not. If I were him, I would have walked away and shut down or shut people out, but he just sat there and…felt. He was so transparent with me, was forced to be so transparent, that it seemed disingenuous to let him be the only one that was see-through. Maybe if he knew he wasn't alone in his suffering, that the person he was sitting next to had issues, too, he might feel a little better. If nothing else, it would take his mind off of his issues for a little while. Or it could be considered an egotistical "it's time to focus on me now" type of thing. I honestly didn't know how he would take it, but I knew he shouldn't be sitting in his frustration, and the only other ways I knew to get him out of his head were sex, jokes, and violence. I wasn't fucking him, I didn't have any jokes to tell, and I sure as shit wasn't going to hit him, so showing him my file was the only thing my stupid, tired brain could come up with.

"Have you read my file yet?" I asked, apprehensively. Okay, so just because I was ready to share my file with him didn't mean I was ready to share my file with him. I was not emotionally prepared for this.

He lowered his hand and gave me the confused look my topic-shifting question deserved.

"No," he replied. "I didn't want to wake you up by going through the duffel bag to look for it."

"I'm awake now," I said. "You want to read about how I tripped over my dress in front of a diplomat? I caught myself on the buffet table. Put my hand right into the mashed potatoes."

Humor broke through his worry and a little smile curled his lips. Okay, maybe I did have jokes, but I couldn't back out now that I had a new option. I'd already put the offer on the table, and I knew it was one he'd take me up on eventually.

"Does the entire thing read like an episode of The Three Stooges?" he asked, knowing damn well that it didn't.

"Not the entire thing, no. But my first few years with S.H.I.E.L.D. were a real hoot," I replied.

Just like that, the smile was gone, replaced with the seriousness that was so prominent in his reputation.

"What about the later years?" he asked.

"Well," I started, dipping my gaze away from his for a moment, "at least you won't be staring at the computer."

I locked eyes with him and watched as a frown took over, wrenching any last dregs of humor away from him. My plan hadn't exactly been the happy-go-lucky kind in the first place, but watching his smile die sucked. Realization was flashing behind his eyes, the cogs turning so quickly I could almost smell smoke.

"You don't have to lie on the wire just to make me feel better. I'll be fine," he said.

"I know you will be but staring at screens that intently is bad for your eyes. You weren't even blinking. At least this way you'll be distracted," I replied. I even managed to sound like I was completely okay with the idea.

"By reading what you won't even talk about," he said, incredulously.

"I didn't say you had to read the horror stories. There's a lot of fun stuff in my file. Again, I point to tripping on my dress," I said, motioning at him with my cup before taking another sip of coffee.

"You know I'll read the horror stories anyway, Dani. I have to," he responded. He sounded almost apologetic about it. No, not almost. He did sound apologetic. And here I was trying to push him into reading the stupid thing. But he had to at some point, and we both knew it.

"Then at least you'll know you're not alone in your misery," I said, trying to sound empathetic rather than sad.

Steve straightened, his eyes widening a little as he finally saw the full picture. I wasn't just trying to distract him with my sob story; I was trying to connect with him. Humor could speak to humor, but pain spoke to pain so much more effectively. It was familiar hurt that could bond people together in minutes, sometimes for the rest of their lives. Misery loved company, but it didn't always want a pity party; sometimes it just wanted someone to talk to. Mine really didn't, but maybe his did.

"C'mon," I said, lightly slapping the couch next to his leg to push myself up. "It'll be fun. Seriously, my time in Bangladesh was a riot."

I set my coffee on the ottoman, making sure it wasn't too close to his so I wouldn't get confused as to who was drinking from which cup, and made my way back around the divider to quickly dig through the duffel bag of goodies. It was already partially unzipped when I got there, so I guessed Steve had been telling the truth about not wanting to wake me up. How sweet. My file wasn't that far down, stuck underneath Steve and Barnes' files and one of the boxes of bullets. I carefully pulled it out, zipped the bag up, and rounded the divider to find Steve's eyes back on the damn laptop. They weren't boring holes into the screen this time, and he looked up when I came into the room, but he'd been looking at it again. Yeah, that had to stop. He was going to drive himself crazy.

I took two long strides and stopped in front of him, extending the folder to him a little more forcefully than I'd have liked. I wasn't sure if it was because I didn't actually want him to read it or because I was frustrated that he was unnecessarily hurting himself by staring at the stupid laptop. Maybe it was both and I now knew how other people felt about my self-destructive behaviors. Whatever my reasoning, it made Steve give me a hesitant look. I waggled the folder at him, my eyebrows raising as I silently nodded at him to take it.

"Are you sure?" he asked, his fingers sliding under the bottom of the file.

"As the wind blows," I replied.

Which meant it depended from moment to moment. That idiom always confused me because wind was inconsistent. It could be gusty as hell one second then completely still the next. Inconsistent!

Whether the idiom was idiocy or not, it got Steve to take the folder, even if it was somewhat reluctant. I grabbed the laptop from its spot on the ottoman and made my way back to my spot on the couch, sitting down and angling the screen in such a way that he couldn't see it. He gave me a look that said that wasn't necessary. I raised my eyebrows back at him in challenge, silently asking him, "Oh, wasn't it?" I watched him think about that for a split second before he agreed with me and flipped open the file. Not wanting to watch him read stuff about me, I pulled up a game of Solitaire. It was just mindless enough that I wouldn't be too distracted from my surroundings but would hopefully keep me occupied enough that I wouldn't concentrate on him flipping through the pages of my life. It also had the added benefit of keeping the scan tab open, even if the tab didn't have to be up to work.

I clicked my way through a game, dragging and dropping and dutifully ignoring Steve as he read…until the sound of him flipping a page kicked me out of my body and transported me to another time.

I remembered it like I was living it, waking up to the sounds of paper rustling, my arms and legs strapped to an uncomfortable metal table, my head pounding and my eyes just barely able to stay open, so blurry they could hardly make out the room around me. An unfamiliar voice said my name, my agent number, and started listing all of the things that were just so wonderful about little old me, like he was giving a Powerpoint presentation of just how good I was. Another man's bored voice chimed in from the other side of the room, saying he'd heard all of this before and to get on with it; he had things to do. I didn't want to know what "things" he meant. As much as I didn't want them to know I was awake, I didn't want to be there, either. I tried to silently pull a hand loose of its restraint only to hear metal clang. Shit! Instantly, I relaxed my body, closing my eyes to make it look like I'd simply had a little spasm in my sleep, but my breathing was uneven, my heart pounding in my throat forcing me to take shallow breaths, giving me away.

"She's awake," the first man said, his accent slightly midwestern America.

"I can see that," murmured the second, his American accent plain and impossible to pin down. When he spoke again, his voice was hovering above me, so close I could feel the heat from his breath. "Open your eyes, little one. We know you're already awake."

Of all the things I was going to do for people who had me strapped to a table, play their game wasn't it. I kept my breathing even, trying to stay calm and play the part of the sleeping patient. My head suddenly slammed against the metal table and my cheek stung. The voice echoing off the walls was my own, a sharp cry at unexpected pain. My eyes popped open and I blinked hard, trying to clear my vision of the sparks going through it.

"There she is! You get limited naptime here, Agent," the man said, his voice sounding almost chipper as he moved away. "We have a lot to do and a limited amount of time to do it, so we need you awake."

Now I had questions. Who the fuck was this guy? Where the hell was I? The last thing I remembered, I was in D.C., driving for the airport so I could head to meet with French spies in Reims. The lights above me were those ugly florescent hanging things with two bulbs spearing unfiltered lights into your eyes. Basically, the stuff of Hollywood horror asylum nightmares. The ceiling was bare concrete, not even a single, broken tile to speak of. I lifted my head, ignoring the way the room swam as I moved, and looked around as best I could. The walls were the same ugly concrete, old and clearly suffering from water damage. A door that looked too metal for my tastes was sitting open. I really didn't want it to close. Shiny new medical and technological equipment was scattered around me, wires and machines all seeming to attach to each other in an intricate web that I didn't want anything to do with. I was right that the table I was laying on was cold metal, but I hadn't known that the cuffs holding me were padded leather held closed with a nylon strap and metal buckle, making sure that if I struggled I wouldn't hurt myself or get loose. I shifted a little to look above me and found a grotesque machine, a thing made of bars, wires, and gears, and what looked like a headpiece with dull spikes. Where the hell was I?! I could taste my heart on the back of my tongue and tried to force it back down my throat as I turned to look at the two men, both nonchalantly messing with various equipment.

And now I was angry. They took me from a job. They snatched me in a way that I couldn't remember. They'd fucking kidnapped me, tied me up, and hit me, and I wasn't okay with any of that.

"Where am I?" I asked, the gravel in my voice part anger and part dry throat.

"Your new home," Goon 2 said happily.

He seemed to be running whatever show this was, so maybe he would be Head Goon. Head Goon was tall, at least from my vantage point, with short, medium brown hair that looked soft to the touch and shining light brown eyes. His jawline was so sharp it bordered on being unattractive, and his nose was slim, with the hard bump that said it had been broken before. He was well-tanned, like he spent a lot of time sun-bathing, which I doubted was the case since he seemed to be so wrapped up in whatever the hell this was. Regular Goon was a light blonde, his hair cut in such a way that he could make a little fauxhawk, and slightly less tan and less tall than his counterpart. He refused to turn around, and instead walked out of the open door to leave me and Head Goon all alone. I wasn't sure if that made me feel better or not. I tore my eyes away from the open door to fix them on the brunet.

"In your dreams," I shot back.

"In your reality, my dear," he said calmly, not turning away from whatever he was doing.

"Who the fuck are you people? Let me go, now!" I growled.

That got him to turn around, and I finally saw what he was working on. It was a little medical tray, complete with a vial of clear liquid, a capped syringe, an alcohol swab, and what looked like one of those bite trays you get at the dentist.

"We're Hydra," he grinned. He looked so proud of himself I could just shoot him.

"Hydra is dead. It died with Red Skull," I argued.

"No, no, no, little one," he said, grabbing the bite tray and standing up. "It lived with Arnim Zola. After all, if you cut one head off of the Hydra, two more grow back."

He sounded like a brainwashed, zealous cult member, so happy to have someone wiggling their finger around in his brain.

"So you're a Nazi that likes to bastardize Greek lore? I've been kidnapped by antisemitic faux historians. That's just great," I scoffed.

The back of his hand caught my cheek, rocking my head to the side, but thankfully not knocking it back into the table. I tasted pennies and knew that he'd cut my inner cheek against my teeth. That mother fucker!

"It is great," he said, his voice slightly strained from anger. "Because we're going to make you better, Daniella. You're going to be so much stronger than you are now. You won't be the pathetic, weak little girl that can't even manage to walk away from a broken car. We can do so many amazing things for you. And in return, you'll do amazing things for us."

His voice got softer as he spoke, soothing me as he set his hands on his knees to bring himself down to look me in the eye. His smile was gentle, kind, and actually charming. He was offering me strength, he said. Elegance. Stability. And there was only one way I could respond to such an enticing offer. I spit my blood in his face. I had strength, elegance, and stability. Plus, he was a Nazi and called me Daniella, so fuck him.

I braced myself for the hits he seemed to so generously dole out and clenched my teeth as my head screamed with the newest blow.

Dizzy, I sarcastically muttered, "Thank you, sir, may I have another?"

"Don't worry, my little masochist bitch," he growled, wiping the spit from his face with a tissue. "You'll get all the pain you want and more. And then you'll do what we want whether you like it or not."

His large hand reached for my face and I squirmed to get out of his reach, thrashing my head around so he couldn't grab me. I didn't want him to touch me. I never wanted him to touch me! My own momentum slammed my temple into his fist, sending me reeling, the world spinning as he took my chin in his grasp and tried shove something between my lips. I clenched my teeth together so hard it hurt. Whatever it was, I didn't want it. His hand left my chin, and for a split second, I thought he'd given up, until my breath was suddenly cut off from my body. He squeezed my throat hard, so hard I thought he might cut off the blood supply to my brain. I tried to pull my hands out of the restraints, to kick myself up and buck him off me, but his grip was tight. My lungs felt like they were on fire, all the more starved from my struggling and my face ached with blood that had nowhere to go. Spots of grey faded into my vision, and just as I felt myself slipping under, he let go. My body automatically took a gasping breath of air, and that was all he needed to shove the bite tray into my mouth. I wheezed and coughed around it and used my tongue to try to force it out, only to get backhanded again.

"If you spit it out, I'll choke you until you're unconscious and shove it in there anyway," he growled, his voice low and dangerous. "Do you hear me?"

I focused on not blacking out, my brain unable to handle the back to back oxygen depravation and physical abuse. He slapped me again, startling me back to attention.

"Respond to me when I ask you a question!" he shouted. "Do you hear me?!"

I glared at him as best as my spinning vision would allow and nodded, trying to suppress the cough that came when I breathed too deeply. Where he couldn't see it, I flipped him off. Once I got out of here, I was going to shove this mouthguard down his throat and watch as he choked.

Satisfied, he straightened his spine and moved his shoulders as if he were settling his feathers.

"Good," he said, as he moved behind me. "Because I want you awake for this. The results are easier to track when someone is awake. It's also more fun."

I tensed as the machine behind me audibly powered on, the electricity suddenly humming through it sending a cold chill down my spine where the metal table could never reach. Gears clicked and whirred, and the table I was on started moving, tilting me so my head was higher up as whatever machine it was came down. Came closer to me. I tried to control my breathing, to not let the Hydra scum see my fear, but it became harder and harder when the curved plates of metal descended into my view. They encircled my head, giving me a feeling of claustrophobia I'd never had before, despite still being able to partially see the room. It was suddenly so crowded. Everything was so close.

"Say when," the man said, gleefully, his finger on a switch.

I took a breath to tell him to stop, to let me go, then his finger moved, and my head exploded with pain. Electricity arched through me, slicing through my synapses and knitting them back together with fire. Pressure built in me until it felt like my ears were going to burst, until it felt like they had, and still the pressure kept building. I could just barely hear the man saying something, could barely hear it over the pain exploding in white bursts in my mind, over my screams that echoed off the damp cement walls. I didn't want to hear anything right now. I just wanted the pain to end. I just wanted him to shut up! I screamed louder, trying to drown him out and expel the pain from my body at the same time. But it never stopped, it never let up, and my mind was shredded under the jolts of electricity until it felt like I was made of pain.

And just like that, it stopped. I slumped back onto the table, unable to catch my breath. The lack of pain was so relieving, so refreshing, that I could almost cry. It was all I could do. My muscles refused to work for me, and I couldn't so much as flip off my captor anymore. I wouldn't cry, though. I would never cry for him. For any of them. They could laugh as they tortured my body all they wanted, but I would never give them the satisfaction of laughing at my tears.

The man rounded the table, standing at my left side with all his medical toys, and took the bite guard out of my mouth.

"There," he said as I tried to not drool on myself, "wasn't that fun?"

"Eat me," I breathed.

"I mean, I didn't hear you say when," he continued, as if I hadn't spoken. He turned his back to me, picking up the alcohol wipe and tearing it open.

"I'm going to stick your finger in a light socket and watch you fry," I threatened.

"It's good to have dreams," he replied.

He pulled up the sleeve of my t-shirt to swipe the alcohol swab over my still-limp arm then turn back to wipe it over the top of the vial.

"It's going to be a reality," I growled. "And I can't wait to kill you."

"It will only be a reality if the psychosis kicks in," he replied. He stabbed the syringe into the rubber cap at the top of the vial and watched as he carefully sucked the contents out. "Let's hope that doesn't happen. I kind of like you. You have a fight I haven't seen yet, and I like that. It's more beneficial to us once we break you."

He stepped toward me with the syringe in his hand, and even though he wasn't trying to be menacing anymore, that syringe gave him a Dr. Kevorkian look that would make anyone quail. Including me. I tried to move away, but my muscles still weren't quite up to the task and the table gave me nowhere to go. He grabbed my upper arm, keeping me still as he lowered the needle toward my flesh.

"This is going to pinch a bit," he warned.

He sank the needle into my arm, a dangerous grin blossoming on his face as he forced the plunger down, pushing all of that fluid into my arm. I grit my teeth with the need to squirm, knowing that to do so might break the needle off in my arm and only lead to more torture, because they would probably dig it out with a knife. I waited, stone-faced, for him to finish, my head still pounding from abuse. Finally, he pulled the needle away, and his grin turned jovial as my eyes started to droop.

"Just kidding!" he said, lightly. "It's a sedative. You can go to sleep now."

"No," I whispered, suddenly exhausted. If I went to sleep, I might not wake up! "Fuck you."

"Go to sleep, my little masochist. There will be plenty waiting for you when you wake up," he said.

He caressed his hand down my cheek, apparently thinking I was too tired to move away from his creepily tender touch. I wasn't. With the last of my strength, I lashed out, sinking my teeth into his hand until I tasted blood. He yowled in pain, jerking his hand away as he cracked me across the head again with the fist I hadn't bloodied. My head hit the metal table, and I didn't even get to hear what lovely words he called me.

A page flipped and blue light filled my vision. It filled me, moving through my veins like blood, etching itself into my cells, rewriting my DNA. It hurt. Everything hurt! I couldn't feel the metal table under me, couldn't feel the way my hands and feet kicked and pulled until fabric burns bloodied my skin. I couldn't even feel the raw wounds, or the way blood trickled down my fingers. My body was fire, hot, pulsating, fire, an explosion barely contained by flesh. Orange burst beyond the blue and men started shouting. I just wanted it to stop. It hurt so much, I just wanted it to stop. I tried so hard to focus, so hard to pinpoint that blue light that wasn't me. It was coming from my left, so far away, and it needed to stop…hurting…me! My hands made of fire reach for it, pulled at the chains holding them, and begged the light to move, to just leave me alone. I didn't want to hurt anymore! Another flash of orange lit up beyond the glow of the blue light, but the light wasn't moving. I thrust my anger, my energy, at it and it shot backwards, flipping it in circles until it clattered against the wall and fell to the ground, a pointed golden staff with a bright blue jewel in it, flung from a medical device filled with wires and metal. Someone grabbed my upper arm, and I could tell by the way my eyes drooped that something big had happened and they wanted me asleep while they figured out what that was.

A page flipped and a hand dragged a dead electrical rod across my thigh.

"Move the disk," Gibson ordered. The head goon should have known it wasn't going to work. It never did. I didn't move it unless I wanted it to, and I never wanted it to move when he did. "Move the disk, bitch."

"Suck a dick and die choking on it, Gibson," I said, my chin lifted. "I can't move it."

"Move the disk!" he shouted, lifting the metal from my leg and flipping the rod on.

"SHOCK ME, YOU FUCKING PUSSY!" I yelled back, turning in my bonds to shout in his face.

"CUNT!" he cried.

He jabbed the prongs into my leg, the thin, white prisoner's clothes they'd put me in doing nothing to protect me. My muscles immediately seized with pain, the electricity coursing through my leg to arch through my body like a lightning bolt. I desperately tried to not clench my jaw in pain, to not chip my own teeth in my attempt to not scream, but the pain was too much and my body acted without permission, crying out to the ceiling until Gibson was satisfied enough to flip off the prod.

I sagged in the chair for the seventh time today. My body was starting to protest, my twitching muscles saying they couldn't take much more of this daily torture. I told them they could, and they would, until I either broke free or died trying. I would not give in to Nazis.

"If you didn't keep me so sedated all the time, I'd be able to practice more," I said, obstinately, my words slurred from pain.

"I don't trust you as far as I can throw you," Gibson sneered, pushing himself to stand from his rolling chair and angrily tossing the prod onto one of the metal tables.

"I'm hurt," I replied, as teasingly as I could, pulling on the leather straps as I tried to put my aching hands to my chest. The motion pulled at the bandages around my wrists, making the wounds sting. It had been a couple of weeks, plenty of time for the wounds to scab and heal, but they kept putting me in that damn electroshock contraption, and putting me in this stupid torture chair, and I always ended up ripping the wounds back open.

Gibson turned to look at me over his shoulder, a wicked glint in his eye as he flashed me an almost seductive half-smile. He turned and walked over to me, his motions bordering on stalking, and stopped just in front of me to cup my chin in his hand. That wicked glint was still there, sadistic and flirtatious at the same time, a flash of mixed emotions meant to unnerve me. It was working, but not so much that I'd let him win.

"Not as much as you could be, but I'll fix that if you don't move that disk," he said, his last words taking on a staccato cadence in his anger. Then his eyes softened in the way that I imagined a serial killer's would when they were luring in a victim, his thumb brushing over the corner of my mouth before he added, "I will break you, Daniella, and it will be so much fun."

"Looking forward to it, honey bunch," I said. I flashed him a toothy grin, one that was more predatory than the charming gleam of teeth he might have been hoping for.

I saw the spark of fury in his eyes that said I was right, that I once again hadn't done what he'd wanted, and that made me want to smile at him for real. I knew he saw my joy in my eyes when he quickly pulled away, and then pulled back too far. I saw the backhand coming and moved with it so I didn't get as much of the impact as he was going for, but that meant I didn't see his open hand coming for my other cheek until it was too late for me to move. He hit me hard, leaving my head spinning as he stomped out of the room and slammed the door behind him, leaving me alone with my thoughts and too sedated to do much about them.

The only reason I hadn't been able to get out yet was because they kept pumping me full of drugs, keeping me in such a state of stupor that I really could just barely use my powers how they wanted, let alone focus enough to get past however many people were on base. I could do some stuff, and they knew I could, hence the torture and subsequent frustration that would end with them walking away to leave me alone so I could practice out from under their thumb, which only let them know that I could use my powers when they found that I'd moved things or burned things to ash. It was an endless cycle that I didn't see coming to a close anytime soon. Unless they electroshocked me into a stupor I couldn't come back from.

They really seemed to like that stupid, fucking brain frying machine. I could hear them using it on the other people they had trapped in the compound. It was always the same. I would be strapped to my shitty bed in my tiny cell, so doped up I could barely open my eyes, waiting for them to come give me food, let me use the bathroom, or let me bathe, or give me my daily abuse, and I would just listen to them wheel people down the hallway like we were really in an old asylum. I would hear the screams echo down the hall, the cries of people having their minds rearranged by pain. It seemed like there were fewer people screaming lately, though, and that worried me. I had to get these people out of here, before everyone's brains were turned into mush, or worse.

I locked my eyes on a scorch mark on the wall, one that I'd made when the golden staff had given me these powers, and waited for my head to stop throbbing. It was always harder to concentrate on moving stuff around when he hit me. I couldn't wait to break his fucking hands on his own jaw.

Voices outside just outside of the door broke me out of my thoughts. It was Gibson, his voice so clear I knew he was deliberately speaking loudly just so I could hear his every syllable.

"Restrict her food and water intake," he said.

Another man, his voice muffled so I could barely make out what he said, replied, "Sir, we don't know how her powers work yet. Starving her might limit her abilities. She's already having a hard time with the sed-"

"I don't give a shit, Mason. Do it. We won't know if we don't try and maybe starving her will get her to finally understand her place. One meal a day. One drink a day," Gibson ordered, his tone hard.

I couldn't hear Mason's response, but I knew mine. I understood my place just fine. I was a badass S.H.I.E.L.D. agent that wouldn't bow to a bunch of fucking Nazis because I had people to save and a family to see. No amount of starving me could sway me from my place in life, unless they starved me into my grave, and then I would come back and haunt them until they went insane.

The door opened, and Gibson stood there against the wall of the hallway, an unmoving oak as men flowed into the room, staring me down as they unstrapped me from the chair only to strap me to a wheelchair so they could bring me to the machine that tried to rearrange your mind. I stared back at him, my eyes promising triumph, and worse, revenge.

A page turned, and I was strapped back in that godforsaken chair in that room with the burn marks on the walls, sedatives coursing through my blood. My body, once on the healthy side of thin, had withered into something frail and weak from lack of food, my stomach hurting as it clenched around nothing in demand for something to eat. My lips were cracked and bleeding from lack of water, my throat so dry it was hard to talk. They'd stopped letting me bathe, leaving my hair filthy and stringy as it fell over my face, my white prisoner's clothes now greyish brown from my body alone. They wouldn't let me sleep to save my energy, instead forcing me to stay awake so they could try to make me use the powers that I was too tired to use. I would eat almost anything they put in front of me at this point, and I felt like I could drink the whole of Niagara Falls. I would do almost anything for even a pitcher of water and a full plate of food. I could feel myself slowly breaking, slowly slipping further into their grasp, but I couldn't allow myself to. I had to see my family. I had to save people. But I was so hungry. So tired.

A woman's muffled sobbing jerked my bobbing head up, the unmistakable sound of an old wheelchair rolling over uneven concrete floors getting closer. They must have captured someone new, another victim to torture into submission, another person for me to save. I watched through the open door, waiting to see the new arrival like I was waiting for a skidding car to hit a light pole. Instead, the sound of the wheels slowed and the blonde man from the day I'd arrived, Tucker, rounded the corner as if he'd been standing on just the other side. So, that's why they'd kept the door open; I'd had a guard. Not that I could move anyway.

Not far behind Tucker were dirtied Converse propped up on the footrests of a creaking wheelchair, the ankles tied to the metal bars with leather cuffs. It was the woman, a black fabric bag over her head. She was thin like I used to be, her skin just barely touched by the sun, with black hair spilling out from under her hood to fall over her Happy Little Trees shirt. My heart lurched. The white of the shirt was dirtied from a struggle, thick spots of blood on her small chest destroying any meaning the words had. Her jeans were torn, her knees, arms, and knuckles scraped and bloodied, and her wrists raw with rope burns from her struggles to free herself from something that wasn't the softer padding of the cuffs on the wheelchair. A simplistic whale tail ring on her right hand was caked with blood and dirt, and my heart dropped to my feet, terror punching through my empty stomach.

"No," I whispered.

Gibson walked out from behind the wheelchair, standing next to it as if to make a statement. I hadn't even realized he was there. I didn't want him there.

"We don't have time for your bullshit anymore. You forced our hand," he said. He gathered the top of the hood in his fist, his cold brown eyes boring into mine as he added, "Remember that."

With a sharp tug, the hood came off, and I stared into the frightened face of my little sister. The gag in Katie's mouth was soaked in blood from her split lip and bloody nose. Tears streamed from her hazel-green eyes, even though her left eye was already so bruised it was starting to swell. She'd put up a fight, just like we'd been taught to do, and they'd beaten the hell out of her for it. I opened my mouth to say something, anything, and that's when she saw me. Her eyes widened in horror, and she screamed through her gag, the sound so painful it felt like it would break my bones, and she started struggling even harder. She shouted at the men through her gag, cursing at them and yelling at them to let me go. To let us go.

This was my fault. I hadn't freed myself in time and now they'd dragged her into their torture chamber. They were going to electrocute her, beat her even more, change her at her very core with that staff, and strip her of her dreams. I couldn't let that happen. I wouldn't. I would kill them all to get her out. I would rip their fingers off for even touching her.

"Let her go," I said, my voice weak but my tone hard, my eyes never moving from Katie. "She didn't do anything to deserve this. Let her go."

Gibson stood in front of me, blocking my view of my sister and pissing me off even more. He leaned down to get in my face, his lip curling at the smell of my unwashed body, hate flaring in his eyes.

"If you had been a good girl like everyone else and done what we said, she wouldn't be here. You should have broken when you had the chance," he seethed.

He straightened up, moving away from me in disgust to lean against the steel tables to my left, and I started to panic, fear finally breaking through the sedative to make me struggle against the cuffs. They were going to hurt her again. He was going to hurt her, and he was going to laugh while he did it. No. No no no. Don't touch her!

"No. Let her go!" I said louder, my voice dry and rough.

Gibson ignored me, and it felt like time slowed down as I tried to focus on Katie, Tucker, Gibson, and on trying to use my powers to undo my restraints all at the same time. I managed to lock my powers on my leather cuffs, pulling at the straps until they loosened, listening to Katie beg them to let us go, watching Gibson as he smirked in triumph, and watching Tucker as he stepped behind Katie and pulled a gun from behind his back. I thought time had slowed down before, but now it almost stood still as I watched him raise the gun toward the back of her head. I dropped the straps of my cuffs and focused everything I had on that gun, wrapping my power around his hand and twisting it in a painful angle to aim the barrel at his face. Somehow, it didn't take much to pull the trigger, and he dropped in a heap to the ground behind the wheelchair before the gunshot could even echo against the walls.

Katie panicked, shrieking hysterically through her gag, tears streaming down her face as she struggled so hard that I thought she might tip the wheelchair over. She cried my name harder than she ever had before in our lives, and I couldn't even hug her to calm her down like I had in the past.

"Katie, you're okay!" I shouted over her screams, trying my best to soothe her with the only thing I had left. "It's going to be okay! I won't let them hurt you! I promise!"

A blur entered my peripheral vision, and I suddenly, horrifyingly, remembered Gibson.

I had just enough time to realize he was pointing a gun before he said, "Don't make promises you can't keep."

My eyes found Katie's beautiful hazel-green ones and I didn't even have the chance to scream before a gunshot tore through the air, a bullet hole making a ruin of her forehead as I watched. Blood sprayed, splattering over my clothes and face and searing into my soul like cigarette burns as Katie slumped forward.

It was only when the echo of the report faded against the walls that I realized I was screaming, the sound raspy and grating against the concrete, my throat so raw it felt like it was bleeding. Tears ran down my face, and I screamed louder when I realized I was too dehydrated to cry, red dripping from my chin as I tried to sob. I stared at the hunched form of my little sister, the little girl I was supposed to protect, as blood slowly pooled in her lap, and felt myself die with her, the last of my battered soul ripped away with her life. He'd killed us both.

And then he moved, and I locked onto Gibson like a snake locking on to prey. Again, I wasn't fast enough, and he sank a syringe into my arm. Hot rage formed around the icy feeling of my soul dying, but I knew now. I knew that grieving and soulless didn't mean dead; it meant I could do anything I wanted and feel nothing. And I would make him pay for killing Katie by making him chew on his own heart.

A page flipped and I was strapped back into that fucking chair, very carefully not looking at the bleach-stained floor or where the bullet had lodged into the wall. My body was in much better shape now, finally clean and starting to fill back out from eating three meals a day and sleeping regularly. It turned out that when you played along like a good Barbie Doll, you were treated way better. I had way fewer sedatives in me now, and they hadn't taken me to the brain scrambling machine in weeks. They still tied me up, but now it was more of a trust exercise to see if I would let myself free than to keep me restrained. It had taken them a week to start trusting me, to really believe that I'd finally caved, but crocodile tears worked well when you literally couldn't cry and your heart was truly broken. I'd really been able to convince them I was converted to the side of evil when I'd agreed with Gibson that Hydra was my only family now and when I'd eventually said that my sister hadn't been worth the bullet he'd put in her. I'd wanted to snap his neck Linda Blair-style for even saying that shit, but I had to play along if I was going to get out of here, and it was proving to be the hardest thing I'd ever done in my life.

They were letting me test my powers without constraints and letting me hear things they otherwise wouldn't have. It was because I was playing house that I knew the scepter they'd used to give me my powers was gone, in another country, and that I was the only captive in the compound to hold out this long. Everyone else had either died from the experiments done on them or been converted to Hydra, becoming a superhuman, a weapon, and a spy all in one. Some of them were out there now, doing Hydra's bidding, murdering without remorse. That meant no one on the base could be saved. No one except for me.

I tore my eyes away from the bleach-stain on the floor, where my eyes had automatically settled, as the metal door creaked open and Gibson walked in, a big grin on his face, his white teeth gleaming in the harsh lights.

"There's my favorite girl," he said, brightly. As he closed the door to give us privacy, he added, "You ready to have some fun today?"

I smiled back at him, using every last ounce of my spy training to make it look genuine rather than bloodthirsty.

"I can't wait," I replied.

"Good! Me either! But…" Gibson said, going from enthusiastic to borderline patronizing, "you know, there's one thing we haven't had you do the whole time you've been here. Well, there's a couple of things, really, but there's one big one and it's very important."

I stared at him, trying to be wide-eyed and curious rather than glare at him for speaking to me like I was five.

"What?" I asked, managing to sound innocent.

Gibson threw up his hands as if it were so simple that it was ridiculous that whatever it was hadn't happened yet.

"We haven't asked you to say 'hail Hydra' yet!" he exclaimed.

Yeah, there was no way he was asking me to do anything. I was either going to say it or I was going to get thrown back into the brain scrambler for a touch up. I knew how this shit worked by now. If you question the cult, you get the hose again.

Gibson walked forward, stopping right in front of me to squat down and look me in the eyes, his light brown eyes so hopeful that I would pass this test for him. He reached out, his rough hand caressing my cheek like a lover. I wanted to bite him.

"That's easy, right? Two little words. Not much to 'em. Hail Hydra. Can you say that for me?"

I felt the bile rising in my throat at his soft words, at what he wanted me to say, but I gave him trusting eyes and nodded.

He smiled at me, looking so proud he could burst.

"Good girl," he said, pulling his hand away from my cheek to drape his arm over his knee. "Go on, then."

I shifted in my chair like I was preparing myself to say those two, big words that would signify that I had truly changed sides, and he stared at me expectantly.

"Hail," I started, then paused, delighting in the way his smile faltered, "the queen."

I grinned at him, a lioness staring down a gazelle, as I wrapped my power around the vial of sedative he always kept in the room and shattered the glass like a fist crushing a paper cup. I snapped the syringe in half, shards of plastic mixing with glass and useless drugs. Gibson's jaw dropped and his eyes bulged as he stood, backpedaling away from me in fear as I took one of his best weapons away from him. Looking as if I'd betrayed him, he reached for the gun tucked away in a holster at the small of his back, the one he always said he never wanted to use on his favorite girl, just barely pulling it away from his body before I ripped it away from him and flung it behind me. The electrical prod he'd loved to use on me sat on the table next to the shattered vial, unused for weeks due to my alleged change of heart. I wound my power around it and sent my anger into the tendrils, heating it until it sparked and burst into flame, making sure the rod could never be used to torture anyone again.

I heard the scuff of Gibson's boot as he turned to run for the door, but my power got there faster, holding it closed like it had been deadbolted from the outside, trapping him the cage with me as I slowly freed myself from the cuffs that had kept me tied down for months. I let him bang on the metal door, I let him call for help, because I knew giving him the illusion of getting out alive was going to make his end that much sweeter. I stood carefully, still getting used to being on my feet after being wheeled everywhere for so long. I really hated sitting. My power grabbed the chair and it didn't take much to burst it into flame. I hated the machines, the EKG, the EEG, the one that held once held the scepter and made me what I am. I hated them all. So, they all burned.

Gibson whipped around as fires burst to life behind him, and I couldn't help but smile as he flattened himself against the door, trying to distance himself from the heat. From me. I took one deliberate step toward him, and he shrank away as if he were trying to melt into the door to get away. That wouldn't be happening. I sent tendrils of power into the metal as I took another dangerous step, then another, heating the door behind him until Gibson jumped forward, right into my waiting hands.

I grabbed him by the shirt collar, twisting it around and around his neck until the fabric was choking him. He swung at me, a vain attempt at a punch to get me to let go, but with these lovely powers he gave me, I was able to stop his fist before it got close to me. He tried again, so cute, but to the same result, until his wrists were left dangling and immobile in invisible chains. I watched from up close as he struggled for air, studying his face as it turned red and as fear danced behind his eyes. His legs wobbled and gave out, and I smiled as he fell to his knees in front of me, kneeling before me in forced repentance, his lashes fluttering as his consciousness finally started fading. And then I let up a little, unwinding my fist from his shirt just enough to let him breathe, but not so much that I couldn't easily choke him again. He gasped for air and coughed when he took in more than his lungs could handle, and I gave him the moment he needed to refocus on the room. On me.

And when he did focus on me, it was like candy, so sweet it was sinful. He was no longer smug, sadistic, happy, or even flirtatious. All that was left in him now was unbridled dread.

"Do you remember what you said to me before you murdered my sister?" I asked, my voice almost completely devoid of emotion.

He closed his eyes and nodded, tears slipping down his cheeks. Oh, dear boy, it was too late for tears now.

"Say it," I demanded, making my voice low and tone dangerous.

"Don't make promises you can't keep," he whispered, frightened.

"That's right, Gibson. I promise," I started, delicately brushing my knuckles over his cheek, making him jerk away so hard that he choked himself, "that this is going to hurt."

His eyes snapped open in terror, locking on mine as I wrapped my power around his ankles and set the hem of his pants on fire. I watched myself in the mirror of those light brown eyes as they widened with realization, relishing in the way hellfire engulfed my eyes and an inhuman smirk pulled at my lips with his first bloodcurdling scream. I held him still as the flames engulfed his pants, quickly eating their way up the fabric to consume his shirt, searing his flesh as he howled his agony into my face.

And then, in the blink of an eye, I snuffed the fire out. Gibson kept screaming for a few moments, his nerves still absorbing the pain of being burned alive, and as his cries died to a whimper, I could hear men yelling on the other side of the door, trying to get it open so they could help their little friend. Poor Gibson. He was all alone. Wasn't that sad?

Gibson started to sag in my grip, the pain almost rendering him unconscious. Silly Gibson. Didn't he know we weren't done yet? I gave him one hard shake to get his attention, making him yelp. I grabbed his chin in my hand, forcing him to look at me, to keep his attention on me as Hydra agents fruitlessly banged on the metal door.

"But I promise you, Gibson, it doesn't hurt nearly as much as you hurt me when you killed Katie. That…that felt like you killed me, too. So, fair is fair."

I pulled my hand away from his face, my palm facing the ceiling, and forced a sphere of power to take shape. I pushed all of my anger, my rage, into that sphere until white-hot fire exploded into a ball in my hand. Gibson's eyes bulged until it seemed like they would come out of his skull in panic, and he shook his head vigorously.

"No! No! NO!" he cried.

I clamped my hand over his mouth, feeding him the fireball filled with all the rage, pain, hate, and death I'd held inside me since the day he'd murdered my sister. His screams vibrated my bones until teeth ached, until my mind rejoiced, and then he couldn't scream anymore because his larynx burned away. His body sagged, every muscle going limp in a way that said they would never be used again, and I let him drop in a charred heap to the floor. But he wouldn't get a burial. I let that white-hot fire inside him rage, let it eat him from the inside out, impossible flames destroying everything he ever was.

I lashed out at the already burning equipment, setting everything in my site ablaze in the glory of my revenge, watching as the fire burned the rot away from the cement walls and scorched the bleach stain on the ground. I bathed in the warm, deadly glow, and then I let it consume me, too. I watched as the flames licked over my feet and legs but didn't burn my flesh or singe my clothes. It was as if I had a protective barrier over me, an automatic defense mechanism to keep me safe, and as the fire snaked its way up my body, I laughed. For the first time in months, I laughed. I was fire, and I would burn them all.

I turned to the metal door, now red hot, and let it swing open so the little men could come running with their little guns to save their doomed friend. And run in, they did, their guns drawn and pointed and so easy to take that it was funny. I laughed as I wrenched the guns from their hands, tossing the weapons into the fire so the bullets could explode in their clips, just like Gibson's. While they stood there, stunned and looking like idiots, I waved my hands, flinging them aside as if I Noah were parting the sea, throwing them into the fire so they could die in agony like their friend. With that joyous thought in my head, I stalked out of the room to the screams of the damned.

A page turned and smoke filled my vision. The world was a crumbling, red-orange haze, heatwaves making the walls waver and move like a funhouse mirror. I didn't know how long I'd been stumbling through the halls, listening to the dying cries and pleas of Hydra agents, man and woman alike, ignoring how they begged me for mercy with their drying breaths. I had no mercy. I'd lost it all when my sister lost her life. None of them would be spared. Ever. They would all come to realize that.

I turned a corner and I saw it, the light at the end of the tunnel, a white glow that couldn't possibly be fire. It was the open door that led to freedom. The weakness in my legs forgotten, I started running, stumbling over broken concrete and dodging collapsing segments of ceiling as I pinned my sights, and my hope, on that one point of bright light. And then a figure blocked out the light, and my pace faltered. A human. A Hydra agent. Another person joined them, then another, all of them carefully stepping through the doorway, wearing smoke masks, fire suits, and helmets. I skidded to a stop, preparing for another fight, for more death. And then I heard them calling a name. My name. Agent Ryan. They were looking for me.

Hope burst in my chest again, a split second of joy before I realized it was all a trick. Someone had sounded the alarm while I'd had my fun with Gibson, or hell, while I'd had my fun with half of the people in the compound, and now new agents were here to kidnap me again, trying to lull me into a false sense of security by using my real name rather than masochist or bitch. I wouldn't go back. I refused. I would rather die.

"No," I whispered, my voice lost under the sounds of rubble falling from the ceiling behind me. "NO!"

I screamed, flinging one of the Hydra agents backwards into a doorjamb, idiotically giving away my position in my wrath. The other agents started shooting at me, and I grabbed a slab of broken concrete with my mind to use as a shield. I threw it at the people shooting at me, knocking them down and pinning them all at once. The man I'd shoved into the doorjamb was fine, apparently, and had taken up his own position to shoot at me, but I guess watching your Nazi pals get leveled with cinderblock is enough to make anyone pause in their trigger-pulling, and that was his mistake.

I tore the gun from his grip with my powers before wrapped the warm tendrils around him, dragging him to me as I stalked forward. I met his throat with my hand and brought him face to face with his death, squeezing down until he gagged.

"All Hydra burns," I growled.

"We're…not…Hydra," he managed.

"Don't lie!" I yelled. Power gathered in my hand, ready to set the fireball aflame in his throat when Director Fury called my name.

"Agent Ryan! Put him down!" he shouted.

I looked up and wanted to fall down. He didn't have his classic leather trenchcoat and he was pointing a gun at me, but I could see his eyepatch in the glow of the flames that slowly brought down the building around us, and I knew the furrow in that eyebrow. It was really him, and I didn't want it to be. I didn't want Fury to be Hydra. Please, don't be Hydra.

"Put him down, Dani," he repeated. "Don't make me shoot you."

He called me Dani. None of the Hydra agents had called me Dani. Oh my gods, he wasn't Hydra! None of them were!

I dropped the man in my hand and desperately tried to not fall on my knees in relief, staggering on my feet as the man coughed behind his mask. Saved tears fell from my eyes, tears I'd refused to let Hydra see, tears I'd been unable to cry because torture had taken them away from me. I apologized profusely to the man I'd almost killed, helping him off his knees as I simultaneously lifted the concrete block off the men who'd been shooting at me. More agents flowed through the open door to grab their fallen brethren and carry them out of the building as the man I'd helped up looked down my body. He looked at Fury, who had holstered his gun, and who simply nodded in a way that said he knew. I looked down to see what they were seeing and saw that my prisoner's clothes were black where Hydra blood had met soot, and that my shoeless feet were bloody and covered in rock dust. So that's why my feet hurt. I lifted my head at the sounds of rocks crunching and saw Fury walking our way.

"It's good to see you alive, Agent," he said, sounding like he genuinely meant it. "Now let's get the hell out of here before this place comes down on our heads."

I nodded at him, trying to not hiccup as I breathed around my crying, and said, "Yes, sir."

I took one step and collapsed into the arms of the man I'd almost killed.

A page turned, and I was sitting in the back seat of a standard black SUV, my face stoic as we approached the still-smoldering ruins of the Hydra base. I was only back here because they said they'd found a mass grave near the compound, and I still had no idea where Katie's body was. She hadn't been in the base. I wouldn't have let it turn to rubble if she'd been in there. I needed to know where she was, and I wasn't going to sit in my hotel room and wait for someone to come get me so I could identify her in a coroner's office. I was going to find her myself, and I was going to bring her home.

The SUV rolled to a stop and I got out. I stared at the tree line that was used to hide the base, wishing it hadn't done its job so well, smelling smoke, ash, and putrid decay on the wind as the screams of the dead still played in my ears. As her screams played in my ears. Fury rounded the back of the car to stand next to me, making sure he stepped heavily on twigs so I knew he was coming. I'd already attacked one person who'd accidentally snuck up on me, sending them to the hospital to mend a few broken bones, like the men I'd hit with the concrete block. It was a miracle all of the good guys had gotten out of the compound alive, their gear saving them from the worst of the damage. It was even more miraculous than anyone chose to be near me right now.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Fury asked. "This might not be how you want to remember her."

I replied to him like I had to everyone else who'd asked me some version of that same stupid question when they'd found out about my decision, like I'd replied to him earlier. "It can't get much worse than my last memory of her. I'm bringing her home today."

Fury gave me a resigned nod and said, "Follow me."

He turned and went back in the direction he'd come from, leading me behind the car and away from the base, and I followed him blindly, watching how his footprints disappeared into someone else's as we found the path people had been taking to the gravesite. We walked for a while before Fury came to a stop ahead of me at a line of mounded dirt. He looked like the specter of death, the hem of his trenchcoat flapping in a rancid wind, and I suddenly wasn't so sure I wanted to do this. Turning to me, he leveled his one perfect brown eye on me, filling it with sorrow, knowledge, and support.

"Brace yourself, Agent Ryan. This isn't going to be pretty," he said.

I knew it wasn't going to be pretty and I'd already braced myself the best I could long before I'd gotten in the car. Tearing my gaze away from his, I took a shallow breath, and used every ounce of will I had to force myself to walk past him, up the small dirt mound, to find myself standing on the side of a mass grave filled with the broken bodies of people whose DNA had been changed for the worst by the scepter. And there, at the far edge, was Katie, her body dark and bloated, her white shirt black and brown with dirt and blood and other things, her beautiful face puffed with decay, and her forehead over her left eye a gaping ruin of bone and rotting meat.

Tears stung my eyes and the wind cut my legs out from under me, dropping me to my knees at the edge of the grave, my fingers sinking into dirt that had held her bloodied body as I screamed at that mutilated face. I screamed at the dirt that dared hold her, at the decay that ravaged her, at the bullet that took her, at death itself, and most of all, at myself for failing her. My rage and grief bounced off the trees to hit my ear, sounding so wretched and broken that it only made me cry more. I stared at her, sobbing so hard it felt like the earth moved with each wail, and realized that I couldn't hold her. I hadn't been able to hold her. Gibson hadn't let me even touch her hand and now I couldn't touch her at all. I couldn't even touch her!

Fury knelt down just inside my vision and put a steadying hand on my shoulder, saying nothing as he leant me his support. But where had he been when she'd been taken? Where had anyone been? Why had they let her die? Like that?! How could they let her rot like this, without knowing she was loved? How could I? How could I have let her die without telling her I loved her? Another scream ripped from my throat, agony so pure it was almost tangible, and I swore I saw tears in Fury's eye as I sobbed in the woods where everything was taken from me.

Papers rustled, and I felt eyes on me. I blinked hard and stared out at the Pittsburg hotel room, the sharp corners a stark contrast to the pit Katie had been pulled from, the laptop with its screen of Solitaire a luxury I hadn't had for months in that prison among the trees. The feeling of eyes on me didn't waver, and I looked over to find Steve staring at me, his expression a mix of horror, sadness, and sympathy. I didn't want him to look at me like that. I hated it when people looked at me like that.

"You got to the part about Manila, didn't you?" I joked, swallowing the flashbacks and the pain they'd caused back down to where I kept them hidden from everyone, even myself. "Look, I didn't know what balut was at the time, okay? And I feel really gross about it so don't judge me."

He shifted on the couch, propping his knee on the edge as he turned to give his gaze more weight.

"Dani, you know I didn't read about Manila. I'm sorry about what Hydra did to you. I'm so sorry about your sister," he said, his eyes filled with so much compassion that it hurt to see it.

"They were doing it to everyone," I shrugged. I leaned forward to grab my cold coffee and set the laptop on the ottoman, making sure the screen was still turned away from Steve. "CIA, S.H.I.E.L.D., they even had a couple of FBI agents in there. I'm not special."

I really wasn't. They were snatching everyone with government experience they could without making it look suspicious, faking their deaths so no one came looking for them. They'd chased me down the highway, pushing me to dangerous speeds until I'd lost control around a blind curve and slammed the back of my SUV into a tree. I'd gotten a wonderful little concussion, knocking myself out for a moment, giving Hydra just enough time to swoop in and hit me with a fucking tranquilizer before I could fully lift my head from the headrest. They'd sent my car over the ravine next to the road, making it look like I'd gotten swept away in the river below. Everyone had thought I was dead until Hydra's infestation of S.H.I.E.L.D. was unveiled and all of their files were released.

But that was then and this was now, and right now there was no way in hell I was drinking cold coffee and using my powers would only melt the flimsy cup and get coffee all over the carpet, which I would have to pay for. I pushed up from the couch to go pour the disappointing brew down the bathroom sink.

"Dani," Steve said, his tone sounding confused and disappointed, "it's not about whether you're special or not. What they did to you…It's a miracle you came out of the other side alive."

I heard him put the folder down, and my mind flashed to Katie's casket, the dark wood shiny and the metal handles gleaming in the lights of the funeral home. And the lid closed. I shook the image from my mind, trying to make the motion imperceptible, or at least so close to it that Steve wouldn't notice.

My feet moved faster, my need for coffee growing with each passing second. I'd barely passed the threshold of the bathroom before my hand was over the sink, pouring out my cold drink and turning on the tap to rinse the brown liquid away until only brilliant white remained. I could see Steve in my peripheral vision as he stood in the doorway, blocking my exit without meaning to with his mass alone, and I fought back a sigh. This was why I never told anyone, why I didn't want to tell him. Everyone wanted to fucking talk about it. All I'd wanted to do was get his mind off worrying about Barnes, and I'd done a bang-up job, because now he was worrying about me. I was fine. He didn't need to worry.

"It's a miracle you came out of there with your mind intact," he said.

I turned off the tap and simply said, "I didn't."

The bathroom was small and the acoustics were good, so I heard the breath rush out of his lungs, the sound so loud in here that it was almost like someone had punched him in the gut. I didn't look at him as I turned to leave or as he moved to let me back into the sitting area. I didn't want to see that pity on his face again. I just wanted coffee and a new topic of conversation.

"But you-"

"You didn't read the rest of the file," I interrupted him, managing to sound mostly matter-of-fact with only a hint of bitterness in my voice as poured myself a fresh cup of coffee. "After Fury and what was left of S.H.I.E.L.D. found me, I let them weaponize me. I wasn't human anymore anyway, so I figured why not, you know? Together we tracked down everyone else Hydra had brainwashed and changed with the scepter, and I killed them all. And every Hydra agent I found turned to ash in my hands because I wanted them to and no one could stop me. And no one could stop the nightmares that set my beds on fire and made them put me in fireproof rooms just to keep other people safe. It took me months to find my humanity again, Rogers, and I still think part of it died in that prison."

"I don't think you give yourself enough credit, Dani," he said, his soft voice coming from only a few feet behind me.

I tossed away the little plastic stirrers I'd been swirling through my coffee and felt my lip curl.

"I think I give myself adequate credit," I argued. "You just don't know me well enough yet."

Gentle fingers touched the inside of my left elbow and I whirled around, startled and aggravated, and that glad my coffee was still sitting on the counter. I expected Steve to jerk his hand away like I was going to hit him, like everyone else did, but he kept his fingers on my arm, his touch so gentle it almost wasn't there. No one had touched me like that since before I'd been taken, and it felt so good it almost instantly broke my irritation. It felt so good I could have cried.

Steve stared at me, his blue eyes so sincere I wanted to look away. I wasn't used to having someone look at me like that.

"I think I do," he replied. "If you were missing any of your humanity, you wouldn't make jokes every time you think I'm sad. You wouldn't try to protect people's feelings. You wouldn't have agreed to help Bucky." He took a step closer and his touch became a little firmer. "You wouldn't have lied about Katie being alive."

I frowned at him, my anger rushing back, offended at his accusation, even if it was true, and offended that he dared to say her name. No one got her say her name except me, and even I refused to speak it out loud anymore. I yanked my arm away from his hand, ignoring the hurt that flickered behind his eyes and the confusion that drew his eyebrows together.

"You don't tell people you just met that your sister was murdered when they're admiring her artwork," I snapped, turning my back on him.

"And you don't make it seem like she's still alive, either," Steve argued. "The fact that you even try to protect yourself from grieving over Katie's death-"

I slapped my hands on the counter, screwing my eyes shut and baring my teeth at the wall. "Stop saying her name."

Steve took a deep breath behind me, and I couldn't tell if he was trying to calm himself down so he could bring back that soothing tone he'd used earlier or if he'd felt like I'd slapped him rather than the dry bar.

"The fact that you even try to protect yourself from your feelings," he started, his voice gentle again, "says that you're far more human than you think you are."

I couldn't say anything to that, so I stared at the granite instead, letting the silence build as I counted the brown spots buried in the black.

"You're not the only person that puts up walls, Dani," Steve said, his voice so soft it was almost a whisper.

My eyes fluttered closed and I hung my head. He was trying so hard to make me feel better, to even connect with me, pain to pain, just like I'd wanted, but I couldn't let him connect with me like that. He was good and pure, and I wasn't. My walls were built to hold back blood and death, and his weren't.

"But I am the only person in this room who engaged in revenge killing and enjoyed it," I replied, my tone hard, a wall in and of itself, and it was one he couldn't talk his way around. It was his turn to be silent. "I liked it, taking everything from them they way they took everything from me. I liked making them beg because she begged."

My throat closed around tears I hadn't cried since her funeral and I blinked hard, but blinking only made the tears drop to the counter. I was crying in front of my charge, reliving a past I'd tried so hard to put behind me, all because I'd put it in his hands. All because Fury had made me put it in his hands.

"I made them fight me when they knew they couldn't win," I said, my throat so tight that the words were strained, "because she'd fought. She fought the people who took her. She broke her fucking hand on one of their faces and they still killed her. So I made them fight and laughed when they failed. It was justice. But their brothers didn't have to call their parents and give them the joy of knowing that their one child was alive then rip their happiness away by telling them their other child was dead. They never had to feel that pain."

I felt Steve's hand on my arm again, a feather's touch on my skin, and I pulled away again, the motion slow rather than the angry jerk from earlier. I had to control myself. I was an agent on a mission, and my mission was to protect the very man I was breaking apart in front of. The man with a heart of gold who kept reaching out to me, who I wanted to hug me and hold my broken pieces while I desperately tried to glue them back together. No one had ever been there for me like that, I had never let them, and I never would. And I sure as hell wouldn't let someone I'd just met, who had their own issues, hold me together, especially not when I supposed to be helping them.

I wiped the tears from my lashes and sniffed, building the walls back up as quickly as I could, as if they'd never fallen. He was right. We did all have walls, but I couldn't afford to let anyone past mine, and I'd just made the big mistake of letting mine start to crumble, being absurdly unprofessional in the process. Swallowing hard, as if the very act would solidify the walls and lock away my emotions, I turned to face him.

His shoulders and arms were so tense I thought they might break if I touched them. It felt like he was doing everything in his power to stop himself from reaching out again and gathering me in his arms, giving me the hug I longed for, but he knew it would be wrong, that hugging me when I'd already pulled away twice would be a bad idea. I did the second worst thing I could think to do, and I looked in his eyes. If I'd had any doubt that he'd wanted to hug me, all of it was erased the moment I looked into his eyes. It was written all over his face, his overwhelming need to hold me, for me to just let him. And I saw it, there in his blue depths, that he wasn't just seeing me. He was seeing Barnes. He was thinking about all the things Hydra had done to his best friend over the course of seventy years, wondering how long he'd held out before they'd taken over his mind and made him a weapon. I'd tried to distract him, and I'd only managed to make it worse.

Suddenly I wanted to hug him to soothe him, to hold him together rather than have him hold me. I wanted to take all of his pain, every ache he felt about his friend, his lost past, and swallow it down so it could never touch him again. But just like I couldn't let him hold me, I couldn't hug him. This display of emotion was unprofessional enough and embracing him would only make it more so. I tried so hard to remember that as he reached a hand out to me one more time, testing the waters to see if I would let him comfort me, if I would let him show me that I was human behind the walls after all, if he could try to help me so he could see if there was any way to help his friend.

I just couldn't allow it. Barnes had been brainwashed and forced to murder people. I hadn't. I didn't deserve help or comfort, and it would do nothing for Steve to try because Barnes and I were cut from different cloth. I was a murderer; Barnes was a victim.

"I need to take a shower," I said, my voice surprisingly steady for someone riding an emotional roller coaster from hell. "You can read over the rest of my file. Maybe get to the part about Manila."

I tore my eyes away from Steve's face as disappointment, as sharp and painful as a knife, flooded his features. Leaving my new cup of hot coffee behind, I walked around him, praying he wouldn't touch me, and went right into the bathroom without grabbing a change of clothes or any hygienic products. I was going to have to use hotel shampoo. Fuck my life.


	6. Unwelcome

I'd made the water hot enough to scald the skin, but it was lost on my body, Hydra's tampering taking even the burning heat of a cleansing shower away from me. I could feel some heat, just enough to make it pleasant, but right now I wanted my skin to burn. I wanted the water to take the cold away, to somehow reach the part of me that had frozen over with ice so thick that not even my own fire could melt it, but nothing could reach it. Not my powers, not hot coffee, and not a shower searing enough to turn most people as red as a cooked lobster.

I stood there for a few long minutes trying to regain control over my emotions and whatever semblance of professionalism I had left. It was way harder than it sounded. Every time I tried to rebuild the walls I'd so carefully put in place, a flash of Gibson's sadistic smile or the tearful glint of Katie's eyes smashed through the newly placed bricks.

Why had Fury done this to me? He had been there, through the entire thing, from start to finish. He'd literally pulled me from a falling building, and he'd been the one to pull the plug on my Hydra missions, telling me he didn't think it was good for me anymore and that the risks outweighed the benefits. Never mind that I'd already killed most of the experiments by that point, but he knew that my nightmares weren't getting any better and that my rage was getting worse. When I'd finally come down from my revenge-high and all of the grief, pain, and guilt finally hit me, he'd agreed to put my file under lock and key and to never make me use my powers again, yet here I was, on a case that involved Hydra, being asked to use my powers. After all I'd done to not be that monster anymore, he'd thrown me back into a situation that had a track record of turning me into a legitimate demon.

Anger swelled in my chest. How dare he?! He knew! He knew how much pain using these powers caused me! He knew using them would bring up awful memories! He knew that pairing me with Steve meant that the good Captain would have to read my file and would force me to relive my trauma! And that was another thing. How could I be so unprofessional as to lose myself in front of a charge? Multiple times, at that! I'd even cried! Bodyguards don't do that. Agents don't do that. And not only that, but I kept gawking at him, looking at his body in increasingly unethical ways, even tricking my lonely brain into thinking that he wanted me back. It had been only a day and I was already losing my mind and my self-control.

I couldn't let it continue. I was better than that, as an agent and a person. Steve deserved better than that, too. He needed someone who wasn't a total wreck to actually help him rather than ogle at him and break down at the first sign of personal emotional stress. I either needed to be that someone or I needed to call Fury to get someone to replace my unstable ass. Hell, even if Fury did send someone to replace me, I would still have to keep my shit together until they got here.

As I rinsed the hotel conditioner from my hair and lathered my body with soap that would dry out my skin, I finally started pulling myself together and settling the bricks back into my walls, not for my sake, but for Steve's. I'd had my breakdown. I'd had my fun. Now it was time to buckle down and get serious, like I should have the moment I'd fucking met him. Too bad I sucked at serious and did much better with cracking jokes.

I finally got out of the shower, hoping I had taken closer to fifteen minutes to get clean rather than the thirty it felt like, and dried off, coming up with a quick game plan on how to grab my clothes and hygienic products without being spotted. Turns out the term "game plan" when you're trying to figure out how to run out of a bathroom was a real misnomer, because it really just boiled down to running like hell without flashing anything, which sounded more like an idiotic street race than an actual plan.

I cracked open the door to the bathroom and peeked out, trying to see Steve from around the corner of the bathroom nook. I couldn't and took it to mean he was still sitting on the couch, probably staring at the computer screen again. The distinct sound of a page flipping told me I was partially right and told me I needed to reinforce my walls with some fucking titanium. Ignoring the way my knees shook with the turning page of my file, I made a mad dash for my bag, hopping over the corner of my bed to settle myself between the bed and the wall, keeping my body completely out of his sight as I quickly rummaged through my things, trying to be as quiet as possible. I grabbed everything I needed in record time, jumped over the bed again, and raced for the bathroom. My heart was pounding as I closed the door, the anxiety of being seen way higher than I'd anticipated. I was never doing that shit again. It sucked too much, and not in the good way.

After wrapping the towel around my head to dry my hair, I brushed my teeth, put on deodorant, and started getting dressed. My shirt was an exact copy of the one I'd worn yesterday, black and loose enough to hide a gun in an inner pants holster, which I also put on, but tight enough to not be suspicious. Instead of the loose cargo pants used for combat training, I pulled on a pair of dark skinny jeans, the material stretchy enough that it wouldn't split with the first high kick. Or even the fiftieth high kick. These things were durable, which was why I had several more pairs of them in different colors. That was me. I'd find something I liked and buy ten more of them before the stores stopped selling them.

Now that I was clean and dressed, I exited the bathroom like a normal person, put my dirty clothes and hygiene products away, and put the gun that was under my pillow into my holster. I had a shoulder rig that I'd put on later, once my hair dried a little, since you really couldn't have too many guns as a special agent. I even had a nice leather jacket to go over the shoulder holster, so I didn't scare people. Wasn't I just the sweetest?

When I rounded the wood and plastic barrier for the second time that morning, I found Steve still going through my file, his fingers under one of the pages like he was getting ready to flip it. At least he wasn't looking at the computer screen. I guessed that was a win. And honestly, it wasn't a surprise that he was still reading it given the time it had taken me to shower, which the clock said hadn't been long. It was a sizeable file, and if I'd made him curious about my post-lab exploits, he was going to have plenty of material to skim through. What was really a win was that he was aware enough to actually look up when I entered his side of the room. Thank the fucking gods. Doing it once when he was lost in his own story was bad enough. Doing it again when he was lost in mine would have been a fucking nightmare and meant something was seriously wrong with him.

Worry immediately flooded his face, quickly followed by a flicker of humor and confusion. I was borderline ecstatic to see humor in his eyes after everything I'd done and everything he'd read, especially when that humor simply came from looking at me. I would rather him laugh at me than have him worry. That strange mixture of emotion still stirred in him, unable to find a place to settle as he took a breath to speak.

"You still have a towel on your head," he said.

"I know," I replied as I walked further into the room. "Long hair holds water longer, so it's either this or I apply for a spot in a wet t-shirt contest."

There it was, that lack of seriousness that I couldn't seem to shake when it came to this case. I was becoming a regular stand-up comedian. Steve, however, didn't seem to understand the joke. I guess he didn't know what a wet t-shirt contest was yet, so the one-liner was completely lost on him. I needed to find a better audience if I was going to do stand-up. His eyebrows pinched together in a movement that was already becoming too familiar for comfort, and confusion overrode humor. I was betting I was going to see that expression a lot while we were together. This one time, I was willing to let him be confused. I wasn't going to be the one to explain to the details of a wet t-shirt contest to him, especially not when he was a smart man who could figure out for himself and/or use Google. Hopefully he would do the latter while I was asleep. Thankfully, he let it go, apparently chalking it up to yet another weird thing modern people did for kicks. Not so thankfully, he turned his attention to another topic I really didn't want to talk about.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"I'm fine," I replied.

Since I was an idiot and had left my new cup of coffee to get cold, I walked over to resign myself to my cold caffeine fate. I couldn't keep wasting coffee. It was just plain uncivilized.

"You don't have to put on an act in front of me, Dani. You can tell me the truth," he said as I reached my cooled coffee cup.

I held back a deep sigh. I'd asked for this. I'd wanted pain to speak to pain and all that bullshit, but now he wanted to actually speak to me about my pain, and I wasn't into that. It was why I'd never actually talked in the mandated therapy sessions, no matter how much people told me I should or how much the therapist pressed. It was so much easier to bury it and never look at it.

"Okay," I said, trying to not sound annoyed. "I'm upset that I let my coffee get cold again. This stuff is disgusting at room temperature."

I took a swig of the nasty brew and made a face at the wall. I had to get rid of some of what was in the cup so I could fill it with fresh, hot coffee and make it semi-drinkable again. I took another gulp as Steve sighed on the couch. Oh, good. He was realizing I was infuriating.

"Dani-"

"Remember what I said about not wanting to talk about it?" I asked as I poured hot coffee into my cup. I decided to forego the sugar and creamer and just drink it as it was. I was tired of fixing shit.

"I just want to help," he replied.

"You help when you don't talk about it," I said, turning to lean my butt against the counter. Well, my lower back. I was short.

"Why? Why would you hold something like that back?" he asked.

"Because the flashbacks are bad enough," I replied, honestly. "Would you talk about your traumas with someone you just met?"

Steve stared at me, determination and sadness in his eyes, and I could almost see him promising himself that he wouldn't let me be alone in this anymore. I knew that it wasn't really about me, it was about Barnes, which only made it worse that he was even trying.

"What do you want to know?" he asked.

"Jesus, god, no!" I exclaimed, shocked, holding up a hand to stop him from saying anything else. I didn't really want to swap sob stories. "I was just saying that to get you off my back. I didn't think you'd actually tell me anything!"

"I can't ask you to open up without doing the same in return," he replied.

"But see, here's the thing. I don't want to. I'm fine," I responded. I took a warm sip of coffee, then took a gulp. It wasn't hot, not that I could feel significant heat anyway, so I might as well chug it before it got cold.

"So fine you're having flashbacks and nightmares," he argued. "Dani, if anyone can understand those, it's me."

Okay, didn't expect that. I should have expected a war veteran from the past to have PTSD, but for some reason, it hadn't really sunk it that could be a reality, and now that it was, I kind of felt like a dick for not realizing it sooner. I mean, I still wanted him to leave me alone, because war flashbacks and the trauma of being forced to leave your own time behind was a very different animal than my post-traumatic beast and he really couldn't relate, but I felt horrible that he had to deal with nightmares, too.

"You know you say that, but you're wrong," I said, my tone much more subdued at the new information.

"I know I'm not," Steve replied. "I know you think I'm this perfect hero, but I've had to do things that I'm not proud of and I've seen things I didn't want to, and they still haunt me."

"I don't think you're a perfect hero."

I'd barely gotten out my last word before Steve said, "Don't you?"

I paused for a moment. Okay, maybe I did, at least a little. He was technically physically perfect and had a moral compass that put Gandhi to shame. He'd done some bad shit, but he'd had a reason and I hadn't. In my book, that may not make him perfect, but it made him a better person than me, and therefore incomparable. Instead of admitting he was at least partially right, I deflected.

"I've read your file. I know what you've done. But you're not me."

I took a breath to continue and Steve cut me off, stubbornly unwilling to hear the rest of my reasoning.

"I don't have to be. I just have to understand, and I'm able to do that."

"Are you?" I asked challengingly, my annoyance already returning. "Reread that file and tell me that you are one hundred percent able to understand why I did what I did."

"I can never understand to that degree. No one can," Steve replied, his tone starting to echo some of my frustration.

"And that's why I'll never talk about it," I said.

His shoulders dropped, his lips parted, and his eyebrows once again pinched together, this time in disappointment, like I wasn't being the person he thought I could be. Well, what did he know? He just met me. I set my coffee down behind me and took the towel off my head, letting my damp, black hair spill down my shoulders.

"I'm sorry, Steve, but if Fury and my own family can't get me to open up, then neither can you," I said. I even managed to sound a little regretful of the fact.

As I looked at the towel in my hand, I realized that I was going to have to take it back into the bathroom, since I couldn't very well throw it on the floor. Hey, if it got me away from that face Steve was giving me, the one that made me feel guilty somehow, I was all for it. I pushed away from the counter and got only one step in before Steve's voice stopped me.

"I'll take it," he said, pushing up from the couch, leaving my file behind on the cushions. He walked over to me, hand extended as he added, "I'm going in there, anyway."

Worked for me. I handed the towel over, grateful for how much room there was between our hands. He'd touched me one too many times this morning and I wasn't up for any more displays of such unprofessionalism from either of us. He didn't immediately move away, though, once he had the damp cloth in his hands, and that made me look up. Like an idiot. He caught my eyes, and the sympathy in them was so pure that I found it impossible to look away. Damn it.

"Even if people go through the same thing, they won't have the same experience. No one can ever completely understand, but they can empathize, and they can only do that if you let them," he said.

I felt my lips part as his words hit me and tried to worm their way into my brain. He left me there, struggling to find a new reason to keep people outside of my walls that wasn't rooted in blind obstinacy, as he went to gather his things for a shower. The only reasons I could find was that it hurt to think about and that I hated crying, more so when it was in front of people.

The closing bathroom door jarred me from my thoughts, even though the sound was gentle and didn't speak to his obvious irritation with my stubbornness. Well, he wasn't the only one aggravated. Who did he think he was, telling me that I needed to open up and talk about my problems? He wasn't my therapist. One read-through of my file and he thought he knew me! But, I guess, I was doing the same to him. I wasn't trying to get him to talk to me about his problems, but I did think I knew him a little more than I had any right to. And I was trying to fix his problems by distracting him or making him laugh, which was kind of my default setting. Ugh, I was a fucking hypocrite. Delightful.

I grabbed my coffee from the counter and took another gulp, as if I could replace one bitter taste with another. It didn't work. Traitor. Well, since it was barely warm and useless for everything except waking me up, which I already was thanks to emotional turmoil, I finished the rest of my coffee and tossed the cup in the trash, where it popped against another empty paper cup. Obviously, it was Steve's, but how did I not notice that his coffee wasn't on the ottoman anymore? I turned to look at the couch and saw what my mind had apparently refused to focus on because he'd been sitting here, his presence making me uncomfortable simply because he knew my past. And because he had seen me freak out a little, but I wasn't going to think about that.

The coffee cup was, of course, gone, my folder was on the cushion where he'd left it, and the laptop had been turned to face the spot where he'd been sitting. I'd been right that I'd only served to make matters worse, making him think more about what Hydra had done to Barnes instead of making him think of it less. Why hadn't I thought of that before I'd offered to show him my file? Oh, right! Because I was a fucking moron.

I walked over to the couch and took his spot, since he wasn't currently using it. My game of Solitaire was gone, unsurprisingly, leaving the scan page completely visible. We hadn't gotten any hits on Barnes on any of the cameras in the city, but I wasn't really surprised. He was the infamous Winter Soldier. He was trained to stay out of sight. For all I knew, he was already in the Bahamas, sucking down a Mai Tai and pulling the occasional plane out of the sky to keep the Bermuda Triangle myth alive. However, I really didn't think he'd show up out of nowhere just to end up pulling some David Copperfield shit that landed him on a beach. He'd shown up for a reason and he wouldn't leave the city until he'd finished whatever mission he was on that had given him that reason. Maybe. Or maybe I should expand the search parameters beyond the tristate area.

I started typing in commands, getting about half-way through when two things happened at once; Steve came out of the bathroom and someone knocked on the door. My eyes flicked up, automatically suspicious of whoever was outside. Who the hell was knocking? It sure as hell wasn't housekeeping. Or it shouldn't have been, seeing as it was too early for that shit. They usually came around ten-thirty or eleven, giving people time to get the out of their rooms to go do stuff around town, then they swooped in to clean up your nasty mess. It wasn't nearly that late yet. Was it? A glance at the clock said no, it was only nine-fifty and whoever it was needed to fuck off. And I needed to put up the Do Not Disturb sign, which I'd failed to do last night, like a bad bodyguard. Why was I even allowed outside?

Steve came around the partition, drawing my attention away from the possible ninja ghost maids outside our door and my own idiocy. His blond hair was still slightly damp from his shower, but it would probably be completely dry in the next forty-five minutes. Men had it so easy. It was already brushed and styled, the front of it pulled up and away from his face to almost look like it was spiked without quite getting there, the soft wave of it swept slightly to the side. He had on a plain, cerulean blue t-shirt now, one that made his eyes pop, their color so bright they looked like tropical water on a sunny day. Cruelly, the shirt was also incredibly tight, clinging to his muscles to the point where he might as well have not been wearing a shirt at all. It looked more like a shirt you'd wear to the gym rather than one you'd lounge around in, and I guess that told me how he expected this day to go. Unfortunately, it meant I was going to be stuck in a hotel room with him while he sat there looking like sex personified waiting for something to happen, which was not good for me and my flip-floppy emotions since I was already trying to keep myself from being attracted to him and the sentient muscles that refused to be contained by mere fabric. Blessedly, he was wearing jeans that hung loose around his lower half, no longer giving me a perfect silhouette of his ass or thighs. I counted that as a win.

Hell, I counted even being able to tear my eyes away from his body as a win, since my brain seemed to want something nice to look at after all that nastiness it'd had to sift through. And he was something very nice. I didn't think I'd had enough willpower to be so good this morning, even with coffee. Go me for proving me wrong. Maybe that self-beratement about professionalism in the shower had done something, after all. I made myself gaze up into his handsome face again, and this time we locked eyes, the unspoken question clear on his face. Who the hell was at the door? I gave him a shrug, raised eyebrows, and downturned lips in response. I had no fucking idea. But I could find out.

I stood, motioning with my hand for him to go back into the bathroom and wait there. He was already in the direct line of fire if someone shot through the door right now. I doubted they would, seeing as how they couldn't see into the room to tell if anyone was actually in here, but I still had to take all possibilities into account. Putting him in the bathroom, which you couldn't even see if you stood in the main doorway, was the safest thing I could do for him. Whoever it was would try to shoot me first, which would give him time to come up with a battle strategy or twenty.

Good to see that my own personal issues, and gawking at him, hadn't completely affected how I did my job. Maybe it was a sign of good things to come? And maybe frogs would jump out of the ceiling. It could really go either way at this point.

Steve glanced around the room, as if he were trying to figure out if there were a different safe place he could go that wouldn't cut him off from the action so much. There wasn't. He gave me a quick look that said he wasn't excited about the prospect of being stuffed into the bathroom like he was helpless, but that he understood, nonetheless, then turned back the way he came.

Once he was out of the lines of both sight and fire, I silently drew my weapon, pointing it at the ceiling as I clicked off the safety. As quietly as I could, I padded over to the door and braced myself against it to look out the peephole, pressing my gun against the thick plastic just in case I had to start shooting. Peepholes were awesome when you didn't have a job like mine. When you did, they were a constant source of anxiety that someone was going to shoot you as you looked through them.

It didn't look like the man on the other side of the door was going to shoot me. At least not yet. He was tall and thin, with light blond hair offsetting bright blue eyes in a tanned, masculine face. He wore what looked like a hotel uniform that was a size too big for him, his blue blazer matching Rebecca's. I was betting he was wearing a pair of black slacks, too. White gloves covered his hands, which rested on the long edge of a food cart that he'd pressed against the door. Room service? Had Steve really called down for room service while I was in the shower? No, he wouldn't have. Wait, did they even have room service here? I guess they did, if they had a damn cart. I was so smart sometimes.

I pushed away from the door just as the man raised his hand to knock again, and quickly made my way over to Steve, who was staying deadly still in the nook of the bathroom, trying to listen for something that would give away what was going on. He looked far too big to be standing there in the doorway, taking up space like he owned the air. I was surprised he could even fit in the bathroom. I clicked the safety back on as I moved closer, assessing how the bathroom seemed to shrink around him as he made room for me so I could get out of the line of fire myself. It was a little unnerving for someone to be so big that the walls and ceiling seemed to disregard the laws of physics.

I lifted one hand away from the gun, wiggling at him to lower himself down to my level as I sidled up next to him, making sure I pointed my gun at the ceiling and away from him. Like a good soldier who did well with nonverbal commands, he bent low enough to breathe across my skin.

"Did you call room service?" I whispered, staring into his blue eyes from inches away.

We were way too close to each other for comfort, but this was the only way I knew for certain that the man in the hall wouldn't hear us. We were closer than we'd been in my own apartment, so close that I could see the details in his eyes, how they were the color of deep ocean water, a bright blue with a hint of green and underlying darkness. A ring a couple of shades darker lined his irises and almost imperceptible flecks of brown floated like seaweed on the surface. His eyelashes were long and thick, and so beautiful that I was almost jealous. I didn't quite get the chance to get there as his dilating pupils stole every thought from my head. Every thought except that the bathroom was very bright.

He took a breath as a third knock sounded on the door, and the silence in my mind was shattered. Shit! Shit, shit, shit! This was really fucking bad! I'd just gotten lost in his eyes, like some fucking neophyte-ingenue hybrid from hell, while potential danger loomed just outside of the doorway. I wouldn't be able to function on this mission if I kept doing shit like that! Fuck, this was bad! I'd have to call Fury and tell him I couldn't do this, that I was emotionally compromised. I mean, sure, I'd done my job and told Steve to get into the bathroom for his own protection, but I'd also lost myself in him so completely that the potential bad guy could have easily kicked down the door and killed us both without me even flinching, so that had to mean I was fucked in the head enough to get removed the case, right? Fuck!

Steve's eyes flicked to my lips, as if he were waiting for me to say something, as the person at the door finally announced themselves as room service. He looked up, glancing over my head as if to acknowledge that he'd heard the man at the door, before locking eyes on me again, looking both less and more certain than he had a moment before. Oh, Jesus. Had he gotten lost, too? It was then that the hammer hit me between the eyes that he did, for some reason, find my crazy ass attractive. He'd found me attractive from the very beginning, and apparently reading all the heinous shit I'd done hadn't deterred him. Boy, what a great time for me to realize that! Oh no. No, no, no. I needed to be pulled from this case. Now.

Steve took a shallow breath, as if he were worried that taking too deep of one might bring us too close together, and finally replied, "No. No, I didn't."

Motherfucker. We were in some serious shit and we'd let ourselves float off into the clouds like we were in a fucking hot air balloon. Whoever was outside of our room was there to either capture us or kill us, and my money was on the latter. I was betting he wouldn't use a gun. It would be too loud, too messy and it would draw way too much attention. He probably had a knife of some sort or was well-trained in hand-to-hand combat. He knocked on the door again, once more claiming to be room service. I wondered if he really thought that would work.

"Stay here until I tell you to move," I whispered.

Steve looked like he didn't like that order at all. Frustration flashed through his eyes, moving so fast that it had been difficult to detect. He nodded, however, and stayed put while I moved back into the main room and clicked off the safety. Unlike the man outside, I wasn't averse to using firepower if it meant keeping me and my charge alive, so I pressed the barrel to the thick plastic, right where the man's chest was, and opened the door.

"Come on in," I said with a smile, making sure I kept my body and most of my head behind the door. "Sorry it took me so long. I was in the shower."

It was the perfect lie, seeing as how my hair was still damp. The man, who was about five foot eight, wheeled the cart in with his own happy little smile, trying to be as unassuming and normal as possible. Nothing to see here, folks. I'm just your Average Joe working in a hotel, not some hired killer or anything. There wasn't much room for the cart with the ottoman in the way, so the man had to stop in the middle of the little living room, leaving a mere three feet or so between the cart and the protruding wall. The cart had two meals on it, both covered with those metal domes that keep food warm, which let me know that whoever sent him knew that there were two people in the room. Not surprising. It sucked, but it wasn't surprising. What was surprising was that the man actually started lifting those little metal domes off the food as he spoke.

"That's alright, ma'am. It happens all the time," he said.

His voice was cheerful enough to make me want to gag, not unlike what I'd done with Rebecca earlier, a thought which also made me want to gag. I wasn't buying his sweet guy shtick so he could stop already. As he lifted the domes, honey dripping from his tongue, I got a good look at what he'd brought us. One meal was French toast with a side of breakfast sausage, eggs, and a glass of orange juice. The other was a country fried steak with scrambled eggs and bacon with a cup of black coffee. I didn't know that Pittsburg knew what country fried steak was. Of all the things, the steak instantly put me on edge. No one in Pittsburg ordered that unless they were from the South and wanted to be disappointed. I was from the South and was very disappointed. What put me even more on edge was that the knife for the steak was nowhere in sight. I closed the door behind the man as I scanned the back of his body for the knife hilt, or even the shadow of a knife sheath. Unfortunately, the blazer was loose enough to hide a gun and a holster, so I doubted I'd be able to find any sign of a knife under the thick fabric. That was okay. I'd brought a gun to this fight.

Once the door was closed, I raised my gun and pointed it at the back of the man's head. He was an idiot, that was for damn sure. He hadn't even tried looking around the door to see if I had a weapon on me, let alone pointed at him. I'd already clicked off the safety, so I didn't get to turn it back off so I could get the satisfaction of having him turn around looking all scared. Instead, my finger slipped onto the trigger, ready to squeeze if he tried anything stupid.

"That looks really good," I said, my own voice still that of a happy, unaware customer. "But where's the knife for the steak?"

The man suddenly reached down in front of himself and whirled around. The steak knife was in his hand and poised to strike. That is, until he saw my gun aimed between his eyes. He stopped midmotion, wide blue eyes settled on me. Oh, he hadn't been expecting anyone to get the drop on him, huh? He hadn't expected a fight this soon. Moron. I let all the air out of by body as I prepared to shoot him, steadying my hand and stilling my mind. When I spoke, my voice was devoid of emotion.

"Drop the knife and kick it over here," I ordered.

He didn't obey. Of course, he wouldn't. Instead, he hurled the steak knife at my face.


	7. So Many Questions, So Little Time

With serrated metal hurtling toward me, I had a split-second decision to make. Shoot the man and lose my only chance of finding out why he was there and possibly end up with a knife in my face, or scare the hell out of him until he spilled the beans. Guess which one I was going for.

My power uncoiled from my mind to wrap around the knife, halting it in mid-spin in front of my face. The blade was mere inches from me, the spin on it so perfect that if I'd let it keep going, it would have killed me. Son of a bitch. He was good at throwing knives that weren't meant to be thrown. What he wasn't good at was staring a superhuman in the eyes without flinching. Actually, from the look on his face, he'd probably shit his pants. Only time and smell would tell.

My left hand unwrapped itself from the gun to grab the knife. I propped my right wrist on top of my left, in the typical position of someone holding a flashlight under their gun, effectively giving me a makeshift bayonet type of deal. Cool.

"Please move," I said, my voice somehow managing to sound both bored and teasing. "Give me an excuse to paint the walls red. This place could use some color."

I was told I was one scary bitch when I was working. I could see why people would think that. I usually sounded either bored or dead inside when I was dealing with threats, and that could be incredibly unsettling. People tended to know how to react to rage or sociopathic laughing, but I found it was harder for people to know how to react to apathy. Apathy meant no one was home, and if they were, they didn't care. They could rip your spine out without so much as a smirk or a frown, and that didn't seem to be nice thought for most people to have.

This guy, though, either didn't think I was scary, or he had a death wish, because he reached under his jacket for whatever bulky item I'd suspected it was it hiding. Idiot. My power lashed out, grabbing a hold of him and slamming him sideways into the jutted-out portion of the wall that held the television. I pinned his body there, not wanting to risk him attempting to hit me as I went to stand in front of him. If this dude was Hydra, then he truly did have a death wish, and there were plenty of ways to fulfill that. He could eat cyanide like his predecessors, he could attack me with a knife, he could come within 10 feet of Steve, or he could simply let me see him. The point was, he was dead. Death wish granted!

The man was stunned enough from the force and shock of being thrown into a wall that he didn't even think of his cyanide pill, which he did, in fact, have until I was standing right in front of him. He opened his mouth just enough for me to see what he was doing, flicking his tongue over his bottom left incisor to seamless pull it from his gums. My gun found its way between his teeth before he had the chance to bite down. Let's hear it for being quick and knowing what these fuckwads were capable of. And let's hear it for having yet another one of Hydra's goons in my grasp.

I could see the fake tooth still resting on the side of his tongue and grabbed it with my powers. There was no way I was sticking my hand in that man's grody mouth. I didn't know where he'd been, but I did know I didn't want his mouth funk on me.

"Captain," I said, thankfully remembering that we were in the presence of other people, "please do me a favor and bring me some toilet paper. There's something here I'd rather not touch."

I wasn't sure he'd heard me until the sounds of ripping paper came from the bathroom. I stared into the man's eyes, the blue so pure and bright that it was like looking at the winter sky on a clear day, and they were filled with terror. Having a gun in your mouth will do that to you. I pulled the fake tooth out of his mouth and let it hover just in front of eyes, letting him see just how badly he'd fucked up, as if he didn't already know that in the area where his brain was supposed to be. Steve chose that moment to come out of the bathroom with a small wad of toilet paper in his hand.

I could really only spare him a glance as he came out of the bathroom, so I could only imagine the look on his face when he saw where my gun was. I still had the knife in my left hand, having moved it backwards so I didn't stab our captive in the throat while I'd jammed my gun between his pearly whites. The tip of the knife was pressed into the man's neck, just enough to make the skin dimple. Carefully, I clicked the safety on my gun and drew it out of the man's mouth. Ugh, I was going to have to clean it really well. At the moment, I settled for wiping the barrel on his jacket before I holstered it. Unfortunately, I couldn't kill him until he told us what he knew, so there was no need for the gun. Nor was there a need for the knife since I had him pinned, so I pulled it away from his throat, bringing the floating tooth along with me.

I silently held out my hand for the toilet paper, which Steve obligingly handed over. I grabbed the tooth out of the air with my newly covered fingers, folded it into the paper, and motioned it toward the nameless Hydra agent.

"I'm keeping this," I said. I flicked my eyes over to Steve and added a quick, "Thank you."

"You're welcome," he replied.

His eyes weren't on me when he said it, though. They were on the Hydra agent that was pinned to the wall. I turned away, hiding what I was doing with my body as set the tooth on the food cart and slipped the knife between my belt and my jeans just behind my right hip, trusting that Steve would keep him in line while I wasn't looking. It would be way harder for the agent to grab the knife if it were behind me. Not that he would be getting out of my telekinetic hold, but still. Once I was done, everything set in place, I turned to face the man, giving him the full weight of my gaze, and he flinched. Well, he flinched as much as he could. Whatever was on my face now well and truly terrified him. Still, scared as he was, he tried to be brave, clenching his teeth so hard the muscle in his jaw became threaded and pronounced.

"Name," I ordered the man. "Give it."

There was no wiggle room in my tone, nothing that told him that he had another choice besides compliance. I would get it one way or another. He might as well do it voluntarily.

"Thompson," he said, his voice only slightly shaky. I had to give him props for that. "I know who you are."

Oh, he did, did he? That would certainly explain why he had the same look on his face as so many other Hydra agents I'd come across.

"Then I don't have to introduce myself," I said. My voice was low, my tone hard, yet still so close to bored that it was scary even to me. "Got any recording devices on you, Thompson? Anything your bosses are listening to or can listen to?"

Thompson tried to shake his head, but I held it still with my power.

"Words, Thompson. Exercise those vocal chords," I ordered. Gods, I sounded like the most sadistic drill sergeant in history.

"No," he said, his voice steadier this time.

"Don't lie to me. If you know who I am, then you know what I'll do, so you'd better tell me the truth," I said.

It was a partial bluff. I couldn't exactly burn him to death or anything since we needed information, but he knew I had tools in my toolbox that would cause him a lot of pain with no bloodshed. And I knew as well as he did that you didn't send a man into the lion's den without giving him some kind of backup, be it a recording device, a gun, a mic, or all of the above. Speaking of guns, I reached out with my hand to grab his jacket, making him try to flinch away against the wall as I flipped it open. He did, indeed, have a gun in a shoulder holster. Yeah, that was mine now. I slipped the gun from the holster, looking him in the eyes all the while, watching him try to find his defiance beneath his fear as I took a step back.

I turned to set his gun on the food cart, unfortunately giving Steve a good look at whatever horrifying expression I had on my face. I caught his gaze, and saw his eyes narrow, a little flinch that I wouldn't have caught if I hadn't been looking directly at him, and I saw him finally understand what I meant when I said I wasn't human. When it came to Hydra, my morality left the building. It always had, but he was the first person to balk at my cruelty and make me feel bad about it in the moment. I usually felt bad about it later, but I never felt bad about it in the moment. I didn't want to be this. I just didn't know how to stop. I think he saw that, because the way he looked at me changed and turned into something resembling heavyhearted curiosity. Unfortunately, we didn't have the luxury of me changing right now. I had to protect Steve at all costs, and if that meant going back to burning people alive, I'd do it in a heartbeat, even if I did hate it.

I turned back to Thompson, raising my eyebrow at him expectantly, letting him see his painful death in my cold gaze if he didn't cooperate.

"Yes," he said, almost immediately. His voice was solid now, not a hint of shakiness to it, but the fear was so clear on him I could almost taste it. Smart boy.

His shirt was certainly loose enough for Hydra to hide a mic wire, but with all of their technology, they probably went with the ear-com route. Not touching him, because I didn't sully my hands on Hydra skin unless I was making a point, I turned his head to the side, and there it was in his right ear, a little earbud so small and discreet I would have missed it if I hadn't actively looked for it. And again, I wasn't touching that shit. I plucked it out of his ear with my power, curling my lip at it as I sent a flash of heat into it, melting wires to destroy the mechanism. I tossed it to the ground like so much scrap and turned my attention back to Thompson. I let his head loose just as I saw Steve scoop down in my peripheral vision to pick up the earpiece, apparently far braver when it came to touching gross things than I was.

"Now that you don't have any voices in your head, how about you answer some questions?" I asked. I wasn't really asking him to answer questions; I was telling him he would, and we all knew it.

"Like what?" Thompson asked, the words too cocky for the look in his eye.

"Like where's Bucky? And how does Hydra still have agents?" Steve asked, stepping up next to me, somehow making himself seem even bigger than he was.

Smart man that he was, he'd put two and tooth together, and he wasn't happy that his efforts to eradicate Red Skull's army had been hindered again.

"You really think Hydra died with S.H.I.E.L.D.?" Thompson scoffed, suddenly way more confident than he had any right to be. It was like bringing up his master gave courage. "We're fucking Hydra. You cut off one head, two more grow back."

"Then why does your pretty little logo only have one head?" I asked, sounding as condescending as humanly possible.

Thompson's smug expression faltered, his aplomb dying before it really had a chance to live.

"See? That's the problem with cult members. You don't question shit. Hydra got shot in the fucking face when S.H.I.E.L.D. died. And you, my corpsey muffin," I stepped forward to grab his chin, squishing his face until his lips puckered, "and all your scattered little friends are the twitching limbs of a decaying body."

Through his pursed lips, Thompson sneered, "Decaying bodies don't twitch, bitch."

I squinted at him, wondering if he really was so stupid as to both call me a bitch and not know the anatomy of death. Suddenly, I realized I was squeezing his cheeks so hard they were obstructing his view of my disdain for him, so I released him and let him see just how fucking dumb I thought he was.

"Read a book, idiot," I said, slapping him on the last word, hard enough to get his attention but light enough to be degrading. "They twitch, they sigh, and then they smell. And you and the rest of the cult are rapidly approaching the gooey, smelly phase of the process. Hell, you're already starting to reek."

I sure as shit wasn't lying about that. He was starting to smell of sweat, whatever deodorant he'd put on no longer doing its job. I would kill for some fresh air. Oh. Oh, I liked that idea. Thompson saw the dangerous light in my eyes, and fear flashed over his face.

"Maybe we should open a window," I suggested.

Thompson gulped, and suddenly the fear was gone, defiance rising up as he accepted his fate. He wouldn't tell us anything if I dangled him over the edge of a window ledge, and I knew it, and from the look in his eyes, he knew I knew it and it only gave him strength. That wasn't going to fly. I pulled the knife from my belt and lunged forward, slamming my knee into his stomach as I brought the edge of the serrated blade to his throat.

"I changed my mind. Let's air out your neck," I growled.

I didn't even get the satisfaction of watching Thompson's eyes turn the size of saucers, because a hand on my shoulder pulled me back.

"Agent Ryan, stop!" Steve ordered as he spun me around.

To be completely honest, I'd been so focused on scaring information out of Thompson that I'd almost forgotten Steve was there. I wish I'd been able to stay oblivious. Steve looked so concerned that I was going to go too far, his eyebrows beetled in disappointment, and it hurt to have him look at me like that. I thought he would look at me like a monster, that him reading my file would make him change how he viewed me. I didn't know he would look at me like I could be better. I didn't know which one I preferred. I did know, though, that I was going to have to lean into being a terrible person if I wanted to get anything out of Thompson without getting the carpet dirty, and I wasn't looking forward to how Steve reacted to that.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't rip his spine out of his mouth," I growled.

Steve somehow managed to frown as his face fell, looking so upset I almost felt like I'd kicked a puppy. That one look said I wasn't being who he thought I could be and that he thought I was stepping on his mission in order to enact yet another revenge killing.

"Because we need him to give us information about Bucky and Hydra," he replied firmly, making it known by his voice alone that he wasn't going to let me do anything to Thompson if it meant losing Barnes.

I felt like such a massive dick. I couldn't do it. I couldn't let him think I was going to hurt his cause with my anger. I just hoped he was going to be able to keep a straight face and not blow my attempt to extract information.

I leaned into him, my body language all screaming that I wanted a fight, and let my eyes slip, showing him that I was just acting. Mostly. I still wanted to kill Thompson for being Hydra, and I would, but I wouldn't kill him before we got every ounce of information out him that we could. Steve's eyes widened with realization. I really hoped it looked to Thompson like I would obliterate his Hydra ass even with Captain Morals in the room rather than the bright-eyed beacon of hope it really was. Steve was clearly still wary, uncertain of what I'd do, but something deep in his eyes told me that he knew I was better than what my file said and that I was only proving him right. Probably not for long.

"He won't give us anything," I said, sounding bitterly resigned to that fact. My eyes still soft to show him I meant none of what I was saying, I growled, "So, I want to play with him until his mind breaks or he dies. If you can't handle that, go in the hall."

Turns out, it didn't matter what look I was giving him; my words were enough to make him lean his shoulders back in revulsion, the subtle change in his body distancing himself from me. I didn't want to know what he was thinking. I hated that I even cared.

Steve's disgust, however, made Thompson play right into my hand.

"I'll tell you everything," he said suddenly, talking so quickly I almost couldn't understand him.

I whipped my head around, giving him a smile more predatory than a shark's, my eyes wild.

"Talk," I ordered. "If you don't, I'll assume you aren't using your larynx anymore and I'll dissect it while you're still alive."

Still holding the look of death in my eyes, I motioned Steve forward with a wave of my hand, telling him he could take over now. It was his mission, after all, so he should be the one to ask the questions. I was just here to protect him and scare the piss out of people. Even if those people were sometimes him. Seriously, why did that suck so much?

Steve glanced down at me as I turned my back on Thompson, symbolically giving my companion the floor, his disapproving look softening as he saw my thoughts flicker over my face. We couldn't afford for him to go soft on me. Thompson had to think Steve was scared of what I'd do, not all squishy over me slowly turning into a wreck. I glared at him and flicked my eyes behind me to remind him that Thompson was watching. He frowned, his face saying that he knew that, and he still wasn't happy with my methods, even if they did work how I'd planned. I could live with that if it meant finding Sergeant Barnes before Hydra did. His body tensed as he held back a sigh and leveled a glare at Thompson.

"Where's Bucky?" he asked.

I gave him major points for his voice being bland, yet firm. I had expected him to be a bit more emotional. Maybe he was taking a page from my book? Nah. He must've had his own little strategies for getting people to talk, or at least be scared.

"I don't know," Thompson replied, his voice shaky.

"Remember what I said about lying, Thompson," I said as I made a show of placing the knife on the food cart.

"I really don't know!" he cried. "We followed you. We thought you knew where he was."

"We?" Steve asked.

"Hydra. Hydra wanted you followed," Thompson clarified.

"How many of there are you?" Steve asked. "Who else is here with you?"

"It's just me. I promise," Thompson replied.

The guy sounded like he was crying. I turned, putting my back to the cart, and saw, to my disappointment, that he wasn't crying. He was simply terrified that he was alone. If he had been with someone, they would have come to get him at the first sign of trouble. That didn't mean they weren't on their way, since that earpiece was glorified walkie talkie, but they weren't in the hotel. Steve apparently had the same thoughts, because he didn't press Thompson on it.

Instead, Steve asked, "If you were just supposed to follow us, why did you attack us?"

"I didn't-"

"Lying, Thompson. Lying," I said, my voice a deadly sing-song.

"I mean it!" he exclaimed. "I didn't want to attack you. I was supposed to dose you with some weird chemical that would make you talk, ask some questions, erase your memory, and leave. I wasn't supposed to kill you. I swear."

His last sentence was almost a whimper, and if he were anyone else, I'd have almost felt sorry for him. But he was Hydra, so I didn't give even half a shit about how terrified he was. If anything, his terror made me happy. It meant he would talk more freely. It's amazing how much fear can loosen one's tongue.

"So let me get this right," I said, holding up a finger to quiet the room. I pointed at Thompson and said, "You dosed the food with some truth serum bullshit so you could find out where Barnes was, but you took the knife. Why?"

"I had to protect myself if you tried to attack me. And you pointed a gun at my head!" Thompson said.

I bristled. It sounded like he was lashing out in fear, but the words were too bold for my liking.

"You tried to attack me before you even knew that, so don't try to pull that bullshit," I fumed.

Steve just barely raised a hand at my rising anger, the motion telling me to settle, that he had this handled. I did what he wanted and shrank back down against the cart, not leaning on it, but touching it, my blood feeling like it was boiling. That lying Nazi prick! I should burn his out on tongue on principle.

"We can't talk if we're dead," Steve said, sounding calm in comparison to both me and Thompson, despite also sounding like he wanted to deck the guy.

"I panicked, alright?!" Thompson exclaimed.

He must've been a rookie. No experienced agent would have freaked like that. Unless he hadn't really panicked, and he was trying to get me out of the way. I narrowed my eyes at him, and he flinched. Steve looked at me to see what I was doing. He looked genuinely surprised to see that all I was doing was making a little bit of a face in the man's direction. Surprised and worried.

"What was the gun for?" I asked, taking the initiative since Steve was distracted and we didn't have much time.

Thompson paused, as if he hadn't expected that question, and Steve turned his gaze back to the Hydra agent, a glimmer of anger looming behind his interest.

"I don't have all day, Thompson, and if you won't give us answers, I'll just take your tongue," I threatened.

Thompson swallowed hard and flicked his gaze between me and Steve.

"If you wouldn't talk, I was told you kill you," he looked at me, then glanced at Steve, "and bring you in, along with whatever information you had."

"Why bring him in?" I asked.

"Because the super soldier serum is locked away in my DNA," Steve said, answering for the man, and startling me. I hadn't expected him to respond. "When Hydra fell, they lost everything. Arnim Zola's computer was destroyed by their own bombs, along with every scientific experiment he had on his mainframes, and the Avengers and you," he looked at me then, "destroyed every Hydra base we found. All of their files were confiscated, including everything about the serum that made me Captain America and made Red Skull…"

"An ugly cartoon character?" I finished.

A shadow of a half-smile graced Steve's lips, as if, no matter how hard he tried, despite the situation, he couldn't help but find that funny. Good. It was funny. And what was funnier was that it pissed off Thompson, the fury of the cult follower glimmering in his eyes.

What wasn't funny was that, no matter how misguided he was, his plan was to kidnap Steve so they could make more super soldiers like Sergeant Barnes. And if Barnes really did remember Steve, having Steve has a prisoner could very well give Hydra the bait they needed to trap their metal-armed assassin again. I wasn't into that, and the murderous look I gave Thompson told him as much, subduing him from his outrage. But that left me with another question.

"Wait. Isn't Barnes a super soldier, too? If they recaptured him, wouldn't it be the same as capturing you?" I asked.

Steve seemed to like that even less than he liked the idea of being imprisoned himself, hostility settling even further into the depths of his eyes at the thought if his friend being subjected to Hydra experimentation again.

"The Winter Soldier isn't a perfect specimen. Dr. Zola used a serum he created from Red Skull's blood, and it worked really well, but it could have been better. As much as we hate to admit it, Dr. Erskine had the better formula. If we want more super soldiers, we need Rogers," he explained.

"So the endgame is to capture both of us?" Steve asked.

"Yes," Thompson replied, very carefully not looking at either of us.

I didn't blame him. Looking at Steve meant seeing how his shoulders had raised a centimeter toward his ears, his body bowing up in carefully contained anger. He wasn't going to allow himself to be taken, and he sure as fuck wasn't going to allow Barnes to be taken. Now that he'd read my file, he had an idea of what Hydra had done to his friend, and he wasn't going to let them do it again, not to either of them. And Thompson didn't look at me because he knew that I knew what Hydra was capable of, and if I was going this hard simply at the prospect of a Hydra agent being in my hotel room, he didn't want to see what my reaction would be if I knew they were gunning to capture and torture two people I was meant to protect.

My immediate reaction was to crush his ribs and let him suffocate to death as his lungs collapsed, but we still needed him, so I counted to ten, took a slow breath in through my nose, and quietly exhaled from my mouth.

"How did you know where we were?" I asked, changing the subject so I didn't kill him. Hydra really did bring out the worst in me.

"Surveillance footage," Thompson replied carefully, as if he didn't want to set either of us off. "We've been running a scan for Barnes and Rogers. When you checked in last night, I was immediately sent to get information."

Shit! I hated it when the bad guys shared my ideas! I also hated it that now we couldn't go anywhere without Hydra riding our asses. Fucking fantastic. We'd have to find somewhere else to go, somewhere off the grid that didn't have cameras. How in the hell were we going to manage that? That one thought spiraled into ten more questions and I tried to calm my brain down to the basics rather than focusing on our limited options. Did they know what our car looked like? Probably. But we had a different license plate, so that should help us out a little. Had they been following us from New York? Possibly. I was probably going to have to move if they caught us on any cameras in Saratoga and that alone made me want to break his kneecaps since I liked my apartment. How far out did their search go? Ooo, now there was a question!

"How far out does the search go?" I asked.

"I don't know," Thompson said.

I tilted my head to look at him through my eyebrows, a silent reminder that I hated lying. Thompson's eyes widened and I saw his muscles tense as he tried to straighten himself under the weight of my powers, almost as if he were trying to disappear into the wall.

"I really don't know," he repeated, his voice rising in fear. "They don't tell me anything but where to go."

I stared him down for a moment, watching as his lips twitched and pursed in concern, his chin trembling slightly. He could be faking, but he'd told us the truth so far. Probably because I kept looking at him like I wanted to skin him alive. Yeah, if he was buckling this much, he was probably telling the truth. And we didn't have time to push him further.

"Captain, do you have any more questions?" I asked, not taking my eyes off of Thompson.

"No," Steve replied succinctly.

"Good. Please grab your things. We have to go," I said.

It sounded mostly like an order, because it was, but I tried to make it sound like a request. Steve looked between me and Thompson hesitantly, apparently unwilling to turn his back on me for fear I might make good on my promise of airing out Thompson's throat now that we didn't need him anymore. I expected Steve to be wary of me once he read my file, but it still hurt, especially since he kept looking at me like he thought I was beyond all of that nastiness. Gods, I was such a fucking baby.

"I haven't killed him yet," I said, carefully dismissive of his unease.

"It's the 'yet' that worries me," he replied.

Fair enough. Thompson had the look in his eyes of someone face to face with a nightmare, and I hadn't even hurt him like I had the dozens of other Hydra agents I'd caught. For him, I was a campfire horror story come to life, pinning him to a wall like he'd feared I would for so long. Yeah, Steve's worry wasn't misplaced.

"I don't blame you. My file is basically a Stephen King novel, but if I haven't killed him already, I'm not going to kill him while your back is turned," I responded. And I shouldn't have said it, I should have just gone and packed my shit, but the part of my brain that liked to bypass my tongue took over and said, "Besides, his imagination is far more damaging to him than whatever death I could dole out. So, I'm not going to kill him yet."

Thompson's icy blue eyes got so wide that I thought I could see the entire room reflected in the whites of them, the truth of my words hitting him like a bomb. I had barely touched him, letting his fear of my past do all the work for me. I'd manipulated him with the death of his comrades and my notoriety alone, and I think that was what terrified him the most. I could feel Steve's gaze fall solidly on me, and when I glanced over, he was looking far more concerned than I worked have liked, his expression telling me be knew that I was better than what Thompson thought I was, and that while he wasn't as worried about me killing Thompson outright, he was still worried about me. I never should have let him read my file.

"I wasn't kidding when I said I'd become a monster, Captain, and that reputation seems to have preceded me," I said.

"That's not who you are," Steve replied.

"That's exactly who she is," Thompson interjected, his voice trembling but certain. "That's what we made her."

"Bet you regret that now, huh?" I teased, switching gears so fast I think I made everyone's head spin. It was either laugh or strangle him and I already said I wasn't going to kill him yet. I switched gears again and said, this time to Steve, "We really do have to go."

I walked around the cart to grab the laptop and my file, thinking I was really glad Thompson hadn't been able to get a good look at the screen as I snapped it shut. I saw Steve hesitate for a moment in my peripheral vision before he turned to disappear behind the partition. If I didn't know any better, I'd think he still didn't want to leave me alone with Thompson. Or he wanted to talk. It was hard to say. The sound of bags being zipped closed sounded from the other side of the divider, and I wondered if he would grab my bags as well. Probably not. He wasn't a bellboy. I took two steps toward the plastic screen when Thompson started talking again and I was really starting to reconsider the homicidal rage. The sound of Hydra lips flapping always managed to piss me off, and now that we had our information, I was having a hard time controlling my boiling blood. Hydra never failed to bring out the worst in me. If I couldn't rip out his throat, could I at least shove a rag in his mouth?

"Hey, w-wait! What are you going to do with me?" he asked, his voice once again becoming borderline frantic.

Well, at least he was asking the important questions, and I was going to have to answer that one before we left anyway, so we might as well tackle it now. I turned to look at him, leveling a lame attempt at bored eyes on him all while ignoring the fury that rose in my chest.

"You get three guesses. The first two don't count," I said.

I turned dramatically and almost ran right into Steve. Startled, my heart went into my throat and I rocked back a tiny step, hopefully not enough for Thompson to notice I'd just had the crap scared out of me. Steve, however, did notice, and had the grace to look sorry immediately before becoming disapproving.

"You said you wouldn't kill him," Steve said.

"Yeah! What he said!" Thompson exclaimed.

Ignoring Thompson completely, I replied, "I said I wouldn't kill him yet. I know you heard that. We're not quite to the 'yet' part, but we're gonna get there."

"I know you don't like Hydra, but murder isn't the way to handle this," Steve said, those eyebrows of disappointment coming back to the fore to make me feel like I was failing at…well, everything.

Even if he hadn't been looking at me like I was letting him down, him calling what I was going to do to Thompson murder definitely made me feel like I was letting him down. It made me feel like a terrible person, but I couldn't argue with his wording. I was going to murder him, whether I felt it was justifiable or not. It's what I'd done for nearly a year after I'd been rescued and no amount of shying away from the word would change that. Instead, I leaned into it, lifting my chin shamelessly.

"Oh, I still think the existence of Hydra is an affront to the very fabric of the universe, but that's not why I'm killing him," I said.

"You don't have to kill him," Steve argued before I could finish. "We can take him with us."

"The only way I'm riding in a car with a Nazi is if their neck is broken," I replied, fighting to not clench my teeth. "And no, we can't take him with us, and you know it because you're smarter than that. If he lives and manages to get away, he'll tell Hydra everything, meaning they can get the drop on us, meaning they can grab you and recapture Barnes as easy as frying an egg. That's why I'm going to kill him."

The hard look in Steve's eyes wavered and I could see the war of morality versus safety and finding his friend begin to rage. Dammit, I was a dick. I kept forgetting that this wasn't easy for him, either. We were both facing down things we didn't want to, and I wasn't the only one that had a history with one of the worst cults ever.

I tried my best to soften my features and tone while still maintaining a certain firmness that said the decision was final, and added, "You don't have to watch, but I've got so much Hydra blood on my hands that one more dead body isn't going to matter."

Steve's face fell as he realized and accepted that I was right, dejection shimmering deep in his eyes as his integrity was shaken to the core. Then something in him shifted, and suddenly all of that sorrow wasn't just for his situation.

"You should want better than that for yourself," he said, his voice mirroring the delicate balance of firmness and compassion.

"I do, but if it comes down to them or you, it's going to be you. Wanting better can wait," I replied.

That sounded way more romantic than I wanted it to. Really, it all came down to protecting my charge, and I wasn't going to let anyone hurt him on my watch, and if that meant getting my hands bloody again, then so be it. Emotions flooded Steve's face and I watched as he rapidly filed through them, trying to process my words, and what they did and didn't imply. I saw his thoughts land on how romantic they seemed, watched them linger there for half a beat too long before he threw the idea away and finally settled on what they really meant. Neither thought was appealing to him, thank the gods, but for some reason, the idea of my words being purely professional seemed to be less attractive than the idea of them being romantic. And that wasn't appealing to me. I was going to have to be more careful with my phrasing.

"Are you two going to kiss or kill me? Because I'd rather die than watch you two suck face," Thompson said from the wall. Great. He was back to being cocky.

I barely had time to watch Steve's eyes widen and see the bare hint of red that touched his cheeks because I almost immediately whirled around to smile at Thompson, taking the wind out of his sails almost as soon as he'd caught it.

"Good, because I was going to kill you anyway. Although now you've given me more ammo to torture you with, so I'm not sure which one I want to do more" I said.

I turned back around to face Steve, already getting sick of all this twirling, and rolled my eyes to tell my companion that I would not, in fact, be using him to torture Thompson. I didn't look at Steve for his reaction, didn't wait for him to say anything, just moved past him with the intent to shove the laptop and file in the weapons bag. All of our bags were on my bed, ready for us to grab them and go. As I unzipped the duffel bag I needed, Thompson started talking again, and now I was starting to get the feeling that he was trying to stall us.

"You know what she's done, right?" he asked Steve.

"Yes," Steve replied, not sounding like he particularly cared. I knew he did. He wouldn't leave me alone about it.

"She's a monster. I haven't killed as many people as she has," Thompson sneered.

I angrily zipped up the weapons duffel and turned back toward the small living room. He was probably right. I'd killed a lot of people. Looking back, I wished like hell I hadn't, that I'd let most of them live to rot in prison cells with crap food and prisoners who hated them, but I'd been so blinded by rage that I'd refused to let them survive long enough to do anything but ask for mercy. Hell, I loathed Thompson so much that I was on the border of repeating the past, of burning him where he stood, but I desperately didn't want to be that person anymore. I was glad Fury pulled me from the Hydra cases, otherwise I would really be no better than the people I'd been killing.

"The difference is that she regrets it," Steve argued.

"Then why is she about to do it again? If you regret something, you don't keep doing it," Thompson countered. "You're just making excuses because you want to fu-"

Nope. My power closed around his throat just enough to cut off his words but not enough to completely cut off his air, making him gag and sputter mid-sentence. Stunned, Steve turned to look at me as I moved back toward the lounge side of the room.

"What? He's stalling," I said. And he was being rude as hell.

"He's choking," Steve countered.

"He can breathe. He just can't talk. I spar enough to know how to not choke someone," I explained. "Besides, if he chokes to death, it'd look suspicious."

"I can't believe I'm asking this, but what wouldn't?" Steve asked, putting his hands on his hips to look thoroughly disappointed in both me and himself.

That was a good question. I would love to throw Thompson out of a window, like I'd said earlier, but that would require breaking a very thick pane of glass, which suicide victims would not go through the trouble of doing. Shooting him also sounded like a good idea because I could make that look like a suicide, but it would put Steve and I at the scene of the deed, and we needed to get the fuck out of dodge, not answer police questions. Then it hit me like a shovel to the face. It was something else I'd said not much earlier. I could break his neck. It would be so easy to make it look like a freak accident, and we didn't even have to be in the same room with him. HA! I was a…well, I wasn't a genius, but I was coming up with some good ideas!

"I'll break his neck. Freak accident. Quick, easy, painless," I said, sounding way too proud of myself for coming up with that.

Steve gave me a look that said he wasn't happy with my tone, either. But hey, every time I'd killed a Hydra agent, it had been bloody and filled with screams that would send shivers down Satan's spine, so I was proud of myself, dammit.

"He's getting off easy," I said, belligerently.

"I know," he replied, sounding like he meant it, "but that doesn't mean that I like it."

"You're not the only one," I muttered, sounding only half as rueful as I felt.

Steve's expression shifted to one of understanding, and he repeated, with much more solemnity, "I know."

I guess giving him my file and opening up to him earlier had helped my case a little with Thompson. He knew I wasn't happy with being faced with killing another Hydra agent, even with my sociopathic show of force earlier. All of my ill-timed despondence was telling him that much. Ugh, all this back and forth rage-to-regret was making the coffee sit wrong.

I stifled a sigh in my chest, wishing like hell Steve wasn't in the room, watching me with his sincere blue eyes as I prepared myself to kill my first Hydra agent in almost a year.

"Captain, could you please do me a favor and go pack the bags?" I asked.

He knew damn well they were already packed since he'd placed them on my bed, and even if they hadn't been, he'd have known that I was trying to get rid of him so he didn't have to watch me deal with Thompson. His hands went from his hips to his belt buckle as he settled into his spot, becoming an immovable wall, telling me without words that he wasn't going to shy away from the decision we'd made. That I'd made. Dammit. I took a deep breath and steeled myself to murder someone in front of Captain Morals. Though I was pretty sure he'd hate that nickname.

I tried to ignore the weight of Steve's presence as I pulled Thompson away from the wall, my hold still firm around his throat so he didn't get the bright idea to start screaming. I awkwardly positioned him in front of the food cart, placing his hands on the push bar while I wiped my prints off of his gun and placed it back in his holster. The cops were going to have a mystery on their hands as to why the food service guy had a gun on him, but they'd have even more of one if he just had an empty shoulder holster. But hey, as long as the mystery didn't involve how he died, I was happy. After putting the lids back on the plates, I wiped down the rest of my prints, grabbed the cyanide tooth, and it in my pocket. No way in hell was anyone getting a hold of a cyanide pill without knowing what it was. I was disposing of that thing properly. How, I had no idea, but I was going to do it. Once everything was in place, I stood next to Thompson and put my back to Steve, effectively locking him out of the conversation. Well, as much of a conversation as it could be with one person talking.

"Listen to me very carefully, Thompson. You're going to push that cart into the hall and take a left out the door. You're going to walk down that hallway like nothing happened, and I'll even give you some last words, predictable as they are. If you deviate from that simple little plan, if I even see you try to draw enough breath to scream, I don't mind you becoming a case of spontaneous combustion. Do you understand?" I said, my voice low and hard.

Finally able to move his head freely, Thompson nodded.

"Good," I said, moving toward the door.

I loosened my grip on most of his body, keeping my power locked onto his throat, ankles, and wrists as I opened the door for him, letting him walk on his own but making sure he wouldn't be able to lash out or run away. He did as I instructed, silently pushing the cart into the hall and turning to the left toward the elevators. I pushed the door almost completely closed, stopping with a mere sliver of the hallway in sight, hopefully making it look like the door was closed to whatever cameras were watching. Whether it was convincing or not would be something I would have to think about later, because seeing Thompson was far more important right now. None of this would work if I couldn't see him.

I scanned the top of the hallway for cameras and saw one not too far ahead of Thompson. It was showtime. A very macabre showtime. As Thompson neared the camera, I let my power slip from his throat just enough for him to speak, and just barely heard him mutter familiar words that hit my stomach like battery acid.

"Hail Hydra."

I closed my power around his throat like a fist as he crossed in front of the camera, starling him so much he stumbled, giving me exactly what I needed to make it look like an accident. I took his stumbling right foot and twisted it so he stepped on it wrong, making him naturally fall forward, and pushed the cart forward with him. The cart started the veer to the side. I could work with that. Moving his hands as if he were trying to regain his balance with the cart, I wobbled the tray back and forth before rotating one of the front wheels so it would go immobile, and used my power at Thompson's back to push him forward all the while. It was the perfect positioning, and his chin connected with the bar of the cart at an awkward angle. A simple thought broke his neck with a gut-wrenching crunch, and his unfortunate death by freak accident was complete, done within a split-second.

I slowly closed the door, trying to maintain whatever illusion I may have managed for the security cameras. Old anger rolled my stomach, the familiar rage brought on by those two simple words I'd heard so often in my prison, new anger filtering in at myself for having sunk back down into the place where I killed Nazi agents in cold blood.

"I guess better couldn't wait," Steve said from behind me, his soft voice still managing to startle me.

Swallowing down every last drop of emotion I had, I turned to face him, and found out that I had not, in fact, swallowed all of my emotions. It was funny how I was incapable of bracing myself for his kindness. Or his disappointment, for that matter. Anger, I could deal with. The other two were giving me a hard time. Still, I tried.

"Better did wait," I replied stoically. "He's dead."

"You were humane, and that's better. 'Better' doesn't mean you become perfect overnight. It means taking steps to change yourself into who you want to be. That was a big step," he replied.

I wanted so badly to believe him, to think that I was becoming the person I'd been trying so hard to be ever since Fury pulled me from the Hydra cases, but that anger I'd felt told me that I'd only be lying to myself if I believed him. It didn't matter that I'd been nice this time; it mattered that on some level, I hadn't wanted to be nice at all. Gods, I was so fucked up.

"A bigger step would be getting out of here before more show up," I said, dismissively, moving past him so I didn't have to watch his expression change. "Come on. Victoria's mom just got in a car wreck and we need to go."


	8. Home

Getting out of the hotel was as easy as waiting five minutes for someone to find Thompson's body and their own brand of PTSD, walking out of the room without drawing attention to ourselves while acting like we cared about the dead guy if they did notice us, and pretending I was trying to not fall apart about my injured mother and/or the dead guy as I was checking us out, all while ignoring the worried glances Steve was giving me. I mean, his concern really helped sell the lie that I was in distress, but it sucked that it was real and stemmed from at least two subjects that I couldn't help him with. The only thing I could help him with was getting the bags into the back seat of the car without looking like we were rushing too much.

As Steve pulled out of the parking spot, I wracked my brain for where the hell we could go that didn't have cameras or people. Or people with cameras. There was only one place I could think of on such short notice that was safe, so I started punching an address into the GPS. It wasn't the actual place we were going, since I knew how to get there by heart after a certain point, but rather a landmark that always helped me find my way.

"Don't stop when the GPS tells you to," I said as I leaned back in my seat. "Just keep driving and I'll give you directions."

"Okay," Steve replied. He paused for a moment before adding, "Where are we going?"

"My grandparents' house," I replied, nonchalantly, as if potentially bringing chaos down on their home wasn't a big deal.

"I take it they're not there," he said, his tone slightly teasing beyond the wall of tension and unease.

"They're on one of their numerous annual family visits. Retired life is good," I replied with a shadow of a smile that quickly died. Interesting how constantly looking in the side mirror to see if bad guys were following you could squash any semblance of mirth. "They should be gone for another couple of weeks, at least."

"Will they be okay with us staying there?" he asked.

"Under normal circumstances, yes," I replied, honestly. My grandparents were pretty laid back when it came to family crashing in their empty house. We were family, after all, and it meant we could tell them if someone stole any of their shit.

"And under our circumstances?" he asked.

"Probably. When family is in trouble, we tend to stand by each other. We've just never had family in trouble like this before," I replied.

Well, we'd had family in trouble in a similar fashion, but I hadn't had the option to hide out so I could escape. No, Hydra had taken all of my options away from me when they'd sent me into a tailspin on a winding road in the middle of nowhere. I'd only been able to "hide out" after Fury had taken me off of the Hydra cases for turning into a monster. I'd desperately needed the downtime to recover but turning up on my grandparents' doorstep feeling like a lost dog that had bitten people wasn't the best feeling in the world. The burning, bloodshot eyes from staying up days on end because I'd been worried I'd burn down their house hadn't felt great, either. It had taken a lot of tea and homemade meals for me to start feeling like a person again, and I had never quite gotten all the way there.

Last night, I'd told myself I didn't think of myself as a monster. Well, that I mostly didn't think of myself as a monster. But, apparently I'd gone a long way to block myself from what I'd done and who I'd become, to numb myself to it, so I could stay sane. And as much as I hadn't wanted Steve to know what was in my file, I'd created this weird disconnect between who I'd been back then and who I saw myself as now. I knew it was me who had done all those terrible things, but somewhere along the line, I'd decided that I wasn't that person. Not really. It took actually giving Steve my file and triggering flashbacks to remind me of that. My brain went a long way to protect me and I'd managed to shatter all of its hard work simply by handing over a few papers. I crossed my fingers that this go around at my grandparents' house put permanent mental protective measures in place. Otherwise I really was going to have to go to therapy like people kept nagging me to do.

"Your family sounds like they're good people," Steve said as he turned onto a new street, his tone both knowing and concerned, as if he'd realized I was thinking about my unhappy past.

"Some of the best," I replied, accidentally talking over the GPS giving out directions. With a wince, I loudly whispered, "Sorry."

"It's okay," Steve replied, a small smile curling his lips.

I leaned forward to read off the directions I'd talked over and promptly shut the fuck up, letting the GPS fill the silence until it was my turn to give directions, leading us out of the city and off the main highway. After we'd officially reached bum fuck nowhere, I had Steve take a side road that I knew would circle back where we needed to go and had him change the license plate while I stood watch. It felt wrong to have him change the plate since I was perfectly capable of doing it myself, but I was the bodyguard here and we needed to make our car harder to find sooner rather than later. Arguing over who should change out a piece of metal didn't seem worth it. It didn't take him long to switch the plates and we were back on the road in no time.

After a couple more hours of nearly silent driving, with Steve and I both partly lost in our own minds, we finally turned onto a dirt road hidden by trees and overgrown brush. It wasn't normally camouflaged like this, merely hard to see as you drove by, but no one had cut it in a month or so, and that meant the flora had grown a little wild. The dirt road was bumpy, with dips that hadn't been there the last time I'd come up this way, but it was nothing the SUV couldn't handle. The locked steel gate, however, was something the SUV could not handle without getting all kinds of banged up, and of course, my dumb ass had forgotten about it. Of all the things to forget about this place, that was the one I picked. Not that spiders got into the house or that one door that everyone was convinced was haunted because it never stayed closed. Nooo, I forgot about the gate. It took all of three minutes to get out of the car and open the usually welcome barrier, and one of those minutes was spent trying to use my power to jimmy open the padlock without breaking it. Turns out, that wasn't in my power skillset and I had to take the gate off its hinges instead.

Once the car was through and I'd put the gate back together, we were back on the road, this time with Steve side-eying me suspiciously.

"I don't usually use my powers to break and enter," I said to his unspoken inquiry.

"I didn't say anything," he replied, sounding way calmer than an accused accuser usually would.

"You were thinkin' it," I responded.

"It's just that I thought I was the one who was supposed to throw the brick through the window or, in the case, break the gate," he said. Was he trying to make me feel better? Or was he trying to connect again? Whatever it was, if he was going to keep referencing Hogwarts house traits, I was going to have to force him to watch the movies.

"No one said our roles can't be reversed," I said, then added, "and you would actually break the gate and have to pay for it to get fixed."

"Well, I can't argue with that," he said, a smile pulling at his lips.

"I know," I replied, flashing him a smile of my own.

The dirt road turned to gravel and my smile slowly faded as the crunch of rocks under the tires started lulling me into a sense of peace I hadn't found in a long time, and when the old two-story house finally came into view, the last of the stress from the past two days flooded out of me. I was home, safe from everything happening in the world, sealed in a little bubble of paradise that smelled like sandalwood aftershave and lilac perfume.

Reality flowed back around me, driving away the thoughts of paradise when the SUV rolled to a stop and Steve put the car in park with a heavy click of the gear shift. Reality wasn't my favorite place to be right now, which was weird, since being in reality meant I was with a really cool dude, and that only attested to the fact that I was twelve kinds of fucked in the head. Mentally slapping myself for being an idiot, I looked at Steve, who was staring up at the house through the windshield, the angle making his eyes look large and innocent. Oh, if only he were so lucky.

"It's safe to get out," I said, drawing his still boyish, inquisitive gaze to me. Happy that I didn't choke on my own tongue, I added, "There's no one around for a few miles and we weren't followed. Just watch where you step. There are venomous things out here."

I didn't wait for him to respond, because there really couldn't be much to say when someone told you to not get bitten. I opened my door and stepped out, careful to look for any fearless snakes that might have wandered onto the warm gravel driveway. The sound of my door closing behind me traveled across the open field, the wide expanse of land making it easy to see if anyone was coming, yet the tall, uncut grass making it difficult to see if something lurked beneath it.

The bang of the car door seemed to bounce off of the trees and bring back with it memories of times I'd almost forgotten. I remembered running through these fields as a kid to pick flowers and play games of pretend, the grass still short but feeling as though it were up to my thighs, and remembered riding four-wheelers through the giant backyard as a teen, kicking up dirt and screaming like a banshee. I could practically see the visions of the past there in the wind-swept grass.

A car door closed behind me and I took a deep breath of air fresh air, pulled back from a daydream. I turned as gravel crunched and Steve came around the back of the SUV, somehow managing to carry all four bags in his hands, which confused the hell out of me. How did he do that when they were all huge and why did he have all four bags? I guess he was just being a genuinely nice guy, and that, in and of itself, always managed to shock me. It was hard to find nice guys these days that weren't douchebags in a thin disguise. Then again, maybe nice guys had always been in relatively short supply and that's why he'd been picked for Project Rebirth over everyone else in his boot camp. Well, that and the fact that he was smart enough to bring down a flagpole by taking out a pin and courageous enough to jump on a grenade. Whatever the case, he was being nice, and I wasn't used to it.

I guess that showed on my face, because he flashed a kind smile at me, one of those naturally charming ones that weakened your knees and dried out your mouth yet somehow managed to be completely unaware of how attractive it was. And somehow that humility only made him more attractive and I hated it. Why couldn't he just be an asshole?

I carefully swallowed around my dry throat as he walked closer, desperately hoping he couldn't see how much a simple smile from him affected me. Of course, it was possible that it was a totally normal reaction that any woman would have. Right? Yeah, that's what I was going to go with. That still didn't stop me from mentally slapping myself again as he handed me my bags. I realized I hadn't even taken a step forward to meet him halfway and slapped myself again. I was the worst.

"Thank you," I said, shoving all of my self-deprecating thoughts to the back of my mind. "You didn't have to do that."

Steve's smile turned knowing as he looked out over the field I'd lost myself in.

"I know," he replied, then turned back to me, "but you seemed a little busy."

I smiled back at him appreciatively and softly said, "Yeah. Yeah, just a little."

It was sweet that he'd let me have that moment to myself. Gods knew I needed it. What I didn't need was to watch his expression change as a hint of desire slipped behind his eyes to join the swirl of already complicated emotions. I looked down, using the need to shift the duffel bags in my hands as an excuse to break eye contact. It was a good excuse, since it was much harder for me to hold two duffel bags in one hand like he could, but it should literally only take me two seconds, so it wasn't a great excuse.

Basically, none of this was good. I really wanted to be a stubborn bitch and fumble with my bags until he walked away or look up and pretend the dilating of his pupils were because a cloud passed over the sun, but I knew a cloud wasn't to blame. Jesus, it was so much harder to ignore him and the way he looked at me in the bright light of day. Or the bright light of a hotel bathroom. And it was going to be way fucking harder for me to ignore how I felt about him when we were totally secluded in the middle of fucking nowhere. Honestly, I would rather run into a building full of bad guys with automatic weapons than spend an untold number of days alone with a man who made my heart race simply by looking at me. What made it even worse was that he was both a charge and a superior, and was therefore untouchable, making my attraction all the more unacceptable. I could not drive that point home hard enough within myself. Oh gods, I might puke. Was it too late to sleep in the car and just avoid him as much as possible for the rest of the mission? No? Motherfucker.

Despite all my racing mind had been able to spew forth, only a few seconds had passed, and I'd only just shifted my grip on the duffel in my left hand when Steve's voice startled me from my thoughts, his tone much more serious than it had been a moment ago, meaning whatever he'd felt had passed while I'd dwelled. Great.

"We should probably get inside," he said, already three steps around me.

"Good idea," I replied.

I quickly turned on my heel to follow him, and the world spun faster than I did. My back hit the SUV and the duffel in my left hand slid to my elbow as I reached for my head, as if my fingers could stop the earth from seeming like it was about to go out from under my feet.

"Dani!" Steve's worried voice called over the heavy thud of one of his bags hitting the ground.

His large hand was suddenly on my upper left arm, and unlike every other time he'd tried to touch me, I didn't push him away. Instead, I let him and the SUV hold me upright while the world settled back into place. I tried like hell to ignore how warm and solid his hand was, and how his grip managed to be gentle, yet firm.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

No, I wasn't. My head was swimming and my heart was pounding even harder than it had been earlier. Gods, I couldn't do this. I needed to call Fury. Asking me to fight Hydra again was bad enough, but I couldn't fight both Hydra and my rapidly, idiotically growing feelings for someone I shouldn't want and couldn't have. I could lose my focus, or worse, my mind, and Steve and I would both end up dead. I didn't want that. I couldn't do this job. But I couldn't tell Steve any of that.

Instead, I took a deep breath to slow down my heart and I replied, "Yeah, I'm fine. Headrush. I think all the blood in my body went to my legs after sitting so long and I just moved too fast, is all."

My head wasn't spinning anymore, so I finally looked up and swept black hair from my face, only to find Steve stooped low so he could watch me and make sure I was alright, or at least not completely lying. Which I wasn't. Completely lying, that is. I was only lying a tiny bit and it was for both our sakes. Even so, doubt and concern painted his features as he straightened up, as if I had the word LIAR stamped on my forehead in big, block letters. At this point, I wouldn't doubt it.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

I placed my free hand on his arm to soothe his anxieties and ended up touching the hard swell of his bicep, which did absolutely nothing to soothe my anxieties. Mentally slapping myself for the umpteenth time, I gave him a reassuring smile.

"I'm sure. I just need to remember that low blood pressure is a thing. Thank you, though," I said.

He studied my face for a second, still trying to figure out if I was telling the truth or just trying to make him feel better, before he finally seemed to accept my explanation, or at least the idea that I was okay, and pulled away. His hand trailed down my arm, leaving delicious tingles in the wake of his fingers, and it took everything I had to not shake the feeling off of me. I opted instead for letting the heavy duffel drag down my forearm as I dropped it back into my hand. The contrast between the rough fabric trying to scrape off the top layer of my skin and Steve's gentle touch was almost enough to cancel out both sensations in my mind. Almost. I was tempted to let the bag take a third trip down my arm just to see if it would work. It probably wouldn't and it would likely just make Steve worry more, and he was still looking at me like he was ready for me to fall over. I couldn't have that, seeing as I was the one who was supposed to be looking after him, so I pushed away from the car and shifted my smile into something warmer and more comforting.

"Come on," I said, taking a careful yet steady step toward the house. "Let's get inside before a copperhead decides it want to say hi."

His face didn't say he found the concept of a venomous snake coming out to play to be terrifying, which made me think he'd either never met one or had dealt with too much other scary shit, but he quickly grabbed his fallen bag anyway.

"Good idea," he replied.

Yeah, probably because it was his idea to go inside to begin with and now we were actually doing the smart thing he'd said. Damn me and my stupid low blood pressure caused by things I didn't ever want to think about. Or was it high blood pressure in this case? Oh, who cared?! This sucked!

Steve let me go ahead of him, probably because I was the only one who knew how to get into the house. Or at least I thought that was why he'd let me go first, but he walked a little too close to me for comfort, letting me know without a doubt that he was worried I was going to keel over again and he wanted to catch me since an SUV wasn't there to save me if my body decided to be an asshole. I appreciated the sentiment but having him so close was making my heart race more than necessary. Trying like hell to block out his presence while also keeping him in the periphery of my mind, I led him the rest of the way up the gravel drive. We managed to make it up the three short steps of the white porch without tripping over each other, and I sent him to stand near an expanse of empty white wall, away from the door and as out of site of the windows as possible. Just in case. I highly doubted anyone was inside, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Plus, it got him out of my way for the tedious ritual of getting into this goddamn house.

I dropped my bags as quietly as I could to the side of the door Steve wasn't standing on and picked up one of the three blue potted plants to my right. Careful to not spill any of the dirt, I lifted the pot up until I could see the bottom, exposing a recessed latch hook that held a secret compartment closed. With a flick of my thumb, the latch came undone and the secret door swung open, letting a small metal lock box fall into my waiting palm. I closed the little door and latched it back up, setting it down exactly where it had been. That detail was not only, apparently, important to the security of the house, it was important to the décor. That last part was according to my grandmother and you really didn't argue with her over how her own house should look, no matter how out-there her thought process was.

Lock box in hand, I went over to the front door and stood on my toes, ignoring the quizzical look Steve was giving me as I popped another secret compartment out of the corner of the door frame. This one had a little door that slid open like the battery compartment on a remote, only way less of a pain in the ass since you didn't have to push down hard enough to break your fingers. I slid the tiny wooden door open to reveal a key in the carved-out nook, and used that to unlock the metal box, which in turn held three more keys, each of their heads dipped in a different color paint. I took the tan and light blue keys out of the box, leaving the purple key inside to feel as neglected as any inanimate object could. The front door had three locks, and only family would know that the purple key was a decoy and that the key that opened the metal box also worked on the front door. Honestly, if I wasn't already a secret agent, figuring out how to get into my grandparents' house would make me feel like one.

I put all of the secret compartments back in place, put the keys in their corresponding locks, quickly used them and put them all in my pocket, then finally grabbed my bags and pushed open the door. I quickly ran inside to turn off the alarm system, leaving Steve alone on the porch, positive that no one was going to kill either of us since they'd had plenty of time while I'd been fiddling with keys.

"Come on in," I called as I punched the last number into the alarm keypad. I winked at the camera in the system, since I knew my grandfather would be checking it with his phone once he got the notification that the alarm had gone off. There were cameras on the porch, too. I knew because I'd helped him get them, all top of the line, and all off the books in case another agency went corrupt.

Steve walked into the house as carefully as a more-than-two hundred pound man could, exactly like he'd done in my apartment, managing to show respect to both the house and the people who owned it simply with his body language as his eyes took in the foyer. It was a pretty simple foyer. It had light wood floors, like the rest of the house, and the walls were painted in the same warm tan that the first key had been. There were carved wood motivational sayings and family photos hanging on the walls. It was your typical "welcome to our home, this is our family, enjoy your stay" type of space.

Steve closed the door behind him as he eyed one the motivational plaques and asked what I hoped he wouldn't but knew he would.

"Why do your grandparents need so many keys?"

His focus shifted to me as I grabbed my bags and moved behind him to lock the door.

"Everyone got kind of paranoid after…well, you know," I said. "My grandfather asked the best way to make the house safe, I told him, and he went a little crazy with it. I mean, people can pick the locks or break a window, but I guess he thinks all the extra measures will make them rethink it."

I turned around to find a hint of sympathy and sadness flickering behind Steve's eyes. I knew where that was coming from, and I didn't want to deal with it. I would rather have him look at me like I was the sexiest person on the planet than have him look at me with pity, even if he did mean well. And that was saying something since I was actively avoiding that shit, too.

My displeasure must have shown on my face, because his expression quickly shifted, sympathy taking a backseat to mild annoyance coupled with understanding. He knew I didn't want to talk, and he got why, but he didn't like it. Too bad. He didn't get to be that invested in my past. I didn't care how stubborn or hot he was.

I guess that showed on my face, too, because discomfort edged into his shoulders and the corners of his eyes. It looked like he knew he was crossing the line, but he couldn't help it, especially when he was aching to find someone who might know what both he and Barnes had gone through.

Jesus, when did I become that good at reading him?! Or was he just that easy to read?

I didn't have much time to think about it, because Steve shifted his gaze away from me to glance at the wooden carvings on the wall, and I watched as his shoulders stiffened a fraction more. He was nervous. I didn't blame. I knew this house like the Browning on my hip. I would have said like the back of my hand, but I paid way more attention to my gun than I did to the backs of my hands. Who stares at their hands all day? Anyway, for Steve, this place was new, and it was someone else's home. It was one thing to be in a hotel room. It was another thing entirely to be invited back to the family stead with someone you barely knew. Hell, I was just as uncomfortable having to bring someone here, especially him. Although, I guess if I had to bring a charge here, someone who wasn't an asshole was a good choice.

Man, I wish I'd pick a lane. I wanted him to be a douchebag, then I was glad he wasn't a douchebag. Find an emotion and stick with it, Dani.

Discomfort or not, we couldn't stand here all night, so I nodded my head toward the end of the foyer, trying to move him forward. We had shit to do. I had shit to do. Like call Fury and tell him to find another bodyguard for America's most precious war hero. I had to think up an excuse to get me off of this mission, too. Knowing Fury and his own unrelenting paranoia, it would probably have to be the truth, which wasn't a fun admission to make. I sent out a silent curse to the heavens for making my job way harder by pairing me with a morally good, intelligent, sexy man that my pheromonal biology apparently meshed with before I tried to send Steve deeper into the house.

"Go on," I said. "Nothing's going to jump out at you. Unless Grandpa left one of his pranks lying around."

"Pranks? What kind of pranks?" Steve asked, not moving from his spot in the foyer. He simply turned to face me completely, making it seem like his body took up all the space in the hallway.

I gave him a sweet smile laced with a tiny dose of mischief. I should have known not to do that. That same spark of attraction he'd shown outside slid behind his eyes and he tried to discreetly draw in a deep breath. He failed miserably at the discreet part. Jesus, was I this bad at hiding how I felt about him, too, or was he just so up front with his feelings that he literally couldn't hide them? I didn't want to think about it. I really didn't. And if I had my way, in a few hours, I would never have to think about it again. Yay!

Using the hope that I would be the hell off this case soon to keep my smile in place, I said, "Go in the living room and I'll tell you."

Curiosity jumped back to life in Steve's eyes, as did as my favorite emotion, suspicion. The two combined were almost enough to completely sweep the-feeling-that-shall-not-be-named under the rug. Unfortunately for me, I was still smiling that impish little smile that had brought on that evil emotion in the first place, so a bare flicker was still left. Also unfortunately for me, Steve still wasn't moving and I wasn't willing to skirt around him and have any part of him touch me. The foyer was just big enough for two not-so-muscular people to stand abreast. Steve was incredibly muscular, to the point that I was halfway surprised that his shoulders didn't touch the opposite walls of the foyer. Okay, that was a bit of an exaggeration, but even so, with him standing in the middle of the hallway like he was, even if I turned sideways, I'd end up touching him. I needed that like…well, I was going to say a hole in the head, but that wasn't the best phrase anymore. Okay, I needed Steve touching me like an alcoholic needed another shot of whiskey. It was just a bad idea all around.

I sighed at him, letting my smile melt into a reassuring upturning of lips. Nothing was going to get him if he walked into the living room. Nothing dangerous, at least. Maybe a fake snake or a mechanical frog, but nothing that would actually do him harm. I gestured him toward the end of the hallway, bag in hand, in an almost teasing "well, go on" motion. Yes. Teasing. Teasing, I could do. Humor wiped away every other emotion for me and let me hide under a false safety blanket of wisecracks and witty jabs, giving me the illusion that none of the monsters called feelings could touch me. Yes, I would wrap myself up in humor so I didn't have to face any of what Steve made me feel. And no, acknowledging it would not make it less effective.

"I'm not sure I trust you," Steve said, giving me one last suspicious frown as he finally turned and headed down the hallway.

"Now, why would you say that?" I quipped.

It was a good idea on his part, because I saw the thin, almost invisible piece of fishing line stretched tight across the bottom of the hallway entrance when he didn't. Alas, I was like my grandfather and didn't have second thoughts until it was too late.

"Steve, wait," I said, just as his ankle caught the trip wire.

A whirring and clicking sound filled the too quiet house. It was a sound I could recognize even if I was locked away in a comatose state. Steve's body seemed to move on muscle memory, and he had just enough time crouch and raise one of his bags, probably the one with his shield in it, to cover most of his body, before a furry stuffed rat flew through the air and flopped off the side of his makeshift cover. Steve stayed there for another second, waiting for the inevitable explosion while I desperately tried to not laugh at him. It didn't work, and the laugh ended up coming out of my nose first, making a little snrk sound. Steve pivoted on his knees to give me a confused, unhappy look. I bit my lips to keep from smiling and failed miserably at that, too, and that earned me a glare that set me off. I laughed so hard I dropped my bags and stumbled. I slapped my hand against the wall to keep myself from falling over, tears streaming down my face. Stress had officially broken me, and I was weirdly okay with that.

I could barely hear Steve's voice over my guffaws. He was trying to sound annoyed, but a bit of humor slipped into his tone and made it lose a lot of its edge.

"I'm glad you find it so funny."

All I could do was nod as laughter continued to spill out of my mouth and propped my free hand on my knee to keep myself from doubling over. I took a couple of deep breaths so I could calm down enough to talk, and looked down at him, tears blurring my vision. He was trying to not smile.

"That was fucking hilarious," I gasped. "Man, if you could've seen yourself. You were just…so scared of a stuffed rat."

It was so ridiculous that I started laughing again and had to take a few more deep breaths just so I didn't hurt myself.

"I thought it was a bomb," he said, this time managing to sound annoyed. The thought that he could actually be upset sobered me up a little, as did the thought that he kind of left me to get blasted, but to be fair, he hadn't had much time.

"Of course, it's not a bomb, you dork," I said, chuckling. "I would have pulled your ass back if it was."

He dutifully ignored me calling him a dork, which was just as well, since I didn't have a good explanation as to why I'd called him that and I was still trying to breathe properly. Oh, I'd really needed that.

He gave me a somewhat humored look and said, "You're supposed to be my bodyguard."

"Not against flying stuffed rats, I'm not. You have to deal with those on your own," I joked.

His seriousness finally shattered completely and fell away, leaving behind the man that had joked around with me in the car just yesterday. It was nice to have this version of Steve back. There was no confusion, no sadness, no sympathy, no dastardly emotion that made me all fidgety, just humor and the way it made him look younger and untouched by the evils of the world. He let out a chuckle of his own, shaking his head slightly so his blonde hair swayed just a little bit with the motion. He got to his feet before I straightened up, still holding on to a hint of a smile as he snapped the shiny trip line with his hand as he stood.

"So is this the prank you were talking about?" he asked, picking up the realistic plush rat.

"Mhmm," I nodded as I scooped up my bags once again. "One of them, at least. He loves pulling shit like that. Three generations of our family have been subjected to flying rats and snakes on strings and mechanical frogs in cookie jars. He even makes the little contraptions that send those suckers flying."

"Which is why you didn't pull me back," he said, reiterating what I'd said earlier, only with much more awareness to his tone. "You knew exactly what was happening."

I simply nodded, my eyes still shimmering with leftover mirth, and very carefully didn't look him in the eye, opting instead to look at the pictures on the wall as if they had suddenly become interesting. If a mere smile earlier had knocked the breath out of him, I was sincerely worried that the glittering green and gold of my eyes might knock his feet out from under him, and I really didn't need to see that happen. Then again, he'd just seen me at my happiest and didn't crack, so maybe he'd be fine. Eh, I wasn't going to test it.

"And you had me go first anyway? Did you know that was going to be there?" he asked.

His tone surprised me a little. It still had edges of humor to it, but now it was back to being a little bit annoyed and a lot a bit confused. I still didn't look at him to confirm my suspicions. I was having such a good time. I didn't need it ruined by him getting all gooey on me or me getting all gooey on him. No goo was to be had this day! Except for the goo that had already been had. I wanted to have fun while I could, and right now, after he'd taken cover against a prank, I was having a lot of fun. Of course, he could get pissy and that could run the fun, too. Maybe I shouldn't have let a guy with a history of having explosives thrown at him walk into a trip wire. Sigh. So maybe roads for this situation to take.

"Not at first, no," I replied honestly. It really was best to not lie to him about most things. I made sure I was too busy adjusting my bags to actually look up at him, though. Boy, these duffels can really preoccupy you sometimes. Keep you from seeing disappointment on people's faces and whatnot. "I thought there was a fifty-one percent chance. I saw the wire a second or two before you walked into it. I guess he has all the other shit, so what's one more scare tactic? And to be fair, I did try to warn you."

"Yeah, a little too late," he replied, not sounding like he was nearly as upset as those words seemed, but I still looked up at him. He didn't look upset, or even all that annoyed. He just looked a little bit put out and the tiniest bit embarrassed.

"If it had been serious, you wouldn't have walked into it," I said.

I gave him a single, reassuring pat on the shoulder and immediately regretted it. He was built like a rock. How was anyone able to hit him without shattering their hand?

Doing my best to ignore all of that, I focused instead on how he'd, thankfully, moved to the right side of the hallway. That meant I had enough room to pass him without touching him. Again. Yay! Now that he'd finally moved enough for me to get past, I made my way into the living room.

It was the same warm tan as the foyer, giving off a happy, welcoming vibe that was currently desperately needed. A long turquoise couch faced the left wall where a large flat screen TV hung over a fireplace, both dark and waiting to be used. A matching love seat was to the right of the couch, and both had steel grey pillows. A beechwood end table was neatly settled in the corner they made, on top of which sat a lamp with sparkling silver woven into the lampshade. A beechwood coffee table and what I could only call entertainment shelves rather than an entertainment center, complete with family photos, rounded out the picturesque setting.

To the right of all that was a set of French double doors that led to the back porch, and to the left of those were the stairs that led to the second floor. Completing the downstairs was the kitchen and dining room, both painted a soothing greyish-green that perfectly offset the walnut wood cabinets, tables, and all the various accessories my grandfather could think to carve. All of the appliances were a shiny stainless steel. I had a feeling I'd be spending a lot of time in the kitchen just making comfort food so I could cope with literally everything happening until I was finally relieved from duty by another agent. I was probably wrong, but I could dream.

"Your grandfather sounds like quite an interesting man," Steve said as he followed me further into the house.

"Oh, he is," I replied, completely bypassing the living room and all of the photos of smiling faces, aiming instead for the staircase. Katie was in there somewhere, and I couldn't handle both Steve's attraction to me and her face at the same time. It just wasn't happening. "My grandmother says he's a five-year-old trapped in a seventy-year old's body, but I just think he's a sadist. But hey, who am I to judge, especially when Grandma says he keeps her young?"

"That's a good point," he said. He sounded distracted.

I turned at the bottom of the staircase to find him stopped just behind the couch, his eyes fixed on the photos scattered along the wall and shelves. Well, fixed on one, really. It was a picture of Katie and I as teens, me in a Pearl Jam shirt, cut-off shorts, and '90s flannel, with her wearing oversized jeans and a tight white t-shirt. She was on my back, having just jumped on demanding a piggyback ride, and we were both grinning from ear to ear. Man, she'd been an absolute goofball.

Pain stabbed me in the heart, and I looked away. I'd been trying to avoid that! Why did I keep doing things I was trying to avoid?! I settled my eyes back on Steve, who was now back to looking at me, this time with a deeper sense of sympathy and understanding than he'd had before. It was one thing to hear about her or read about her, but to see her there, her face next to mine, so similar to mine, smiling so happily, was another thing entirely. Seeing people always made them more real somehow, even to the most empathetic person. And now he'd seen her. Dammit.

To his credit, he didn't push me this time. Instead, he asked, "Do you think there are more pranks lying around?"

I carefully focused solely on him and that question and thought about that for a moment. Would my grandfather put any more pranks around the house to scare off trespassers? Probably. Would he put more pranks around the house to scare my grandmother and then forget about them before they left on their trip? Absolutely.

"More than likely," I replied. "Just keep an eye out for things that look out of place. You know, like you usually do."

He graced me with a half-smile for my attempt at a joke and gave a quick nod of his head. "I'll do that."

"Awesome sauce," I replied. With a jerk of my head toward the stairs, I added, "You ready to see where you're sleeping?"

He gave me a full smile at that, and I was positive that the only thing that kept me from going mushy was that I'd just been heart-crushingly sad. I wasn't sure whether or not I was happy with that, since I really fucking hated being sad, but I also hated liking him. Plus, I had a nice little record going of not getting all gooey over him, not that it was a very impressive record, and I really wanted to keep it going.

I stopped thinking when he took a step forward and said, "Sure."


	9. Fears and Cheers

I led Steve up the stairs, passing more family photos and random paintings that my grandmother had found in local antique stores. There was a white door across the hall from the top of the stairs, which was where I would be sleeping. It was the first door someone would check if they were coming in to kill us, so it was my job as a bodyguard to sleep in there. It had been my mother’s room once upon a time, and then had served as a guest room where my sister and I had slept when we’d visited our grandparents. And it was girly enough to make me want to puke. 

The room was painted a light blue-green that my grandmother insisted on calling seafoam. I thought it was just blue-green, but you really didn’t argue with my grandmother about décor if you valued your sanity, and I learned early on that I valued my sanity pretty damn hard. A queen-sized bed sat on a white wood bedframe that had a high, curved headboard, with flowers intricately carved around the edge. The comforter and top two matching pillows were a cream color so light that if you didn’t have the frame to compare it to, you’d have said they were white. Little blue, pink, and light purple flowers with green leaves were embroidered on the bottom of the comforter and onto the open edges of the pillowcases. The sheets and their matching two pillows were a blue-green only a few shades darker than the walls. White wood nightstands, with their own carved flowers, sat on either side of the bed, both with silver lamps that held plain white lampshades. White wood frames hung from the walls, each holding an old artwork from a child or grandchild that my grandmother had collected over the years. It didn’t go with the room at all, but it was sweet. Oh, and because this was your standard girl’s room, there was a full length, white wire mirror that stood off to the side of a pair of white closet doors. That wasn’t sweet. That was weird and freaked me out every time I walked by it. Honestly, if I didn’t have a job to do, I’d make Steve stay in there, because that room made me downright nauseous. 

Alas, the room right next door was where Steve would be staying, and it was substantially better. It had been my uncle’s. He had been a very woodsy guy when he was growing up, and the room reflected that. I skipped past my room and went straight to Steve’s, swinging open the door to reveal walls painted a rich green, the kind that would normally be found on the trees in my grandparents’ woods. There was a queen-sized bed pushed against the far wall, this one sitting on a dark wood frame with a square headboard that looked like it was made out of old two-by-fours and a banister ledge. The comforter and top two pillows were a plain light brown meant to offset the darkness of the walls and furniture. The sheets and remaining two pillows were the same light cream color as the comforter in my mom’s old room, which made me wonder if they’d originally been a set. Rustic, dark wood bedside tables held twins to the lamps that were in my mother’s room. I guess some décor pieces are universal. The paintings on the wall were professionally done scenes of the outdoors, as if to tell you, unequivocally, that this was the room of an outdoorsman, as if almost everything else about the room didn’t already tell you that. And just to drive home that this was a manly room for manly lumberjack menfolk, there wasn’t a full-length mirror in here. For shame.

“This is your room,” I said as I led him in. “Sorry about the motif. My uncle insisted it remain as burly as he is. I’ll be just next door if you need me for anything.”

As if he would need me for something. Please need me for something. Need me for anything. I hated it in that room so much. A nefarious thought started wiggling its way across my mind at the implications of Steve needing me for something in the middle of the night, and I promptly stomped on it before it could inch any further into my brain. Yay, me! Good Dani!

I turned to watch Steve as he walked into the room behind me, once again letting his eyes rove over the space, taking everything in like he’d done downstairs and in my apartment. At first, I watched him just to try to gauge how he felt about the room, since it didn’t seem like it was up his alley, but it was at least more privacy than he’d had in the hotel. Then my mind took me other places. Places I didn’t want to go as I noticed how the walls brought out a hint of green in his eyes and how his lips seemed fuller when he wasn’t clenching his jaw. No, me! Bad Dani! 

Chastising myself apparently worked, only instead of looking to the side, my dumb ass looked down, directly at his body. That damn shirt he was wearing was so tight he might as well have not worn anything. I could see his muscles in his back move as he looked around the room, could see how his shoulders and upper arms tensed as he shifted his grip on his bags, and every time I caught a glimpse of his chest, the fabric stretched tight enough to rip but never doing so, I swear I believed in the gods a little bit more. 

His voice broke me of my highly inappropriate thoughts, and I was glad he had his back to me so he couldn’t see the faint blush that started to creep over my cheeks. Dear gods, what was wrong with me? It had taken merely being alone with him in a bedroom for my tiny streak of not being unprofessional to be thoroughly broken. Ugh, kill me now or find me someone to have sex with. Or just get me away from him. Someone do something to release me from this hell of my own making! Hey, maybe if I bit my cheek until I bled every time I had an inappropriate thought, I’d stop having inappropriate thoughts. Pavlov’s chastity belt. Now what had Steve said? Oh, right!

“You have an uncle?” he asked.

“Yep,” I replied, moving toward the doorway, ready to get the hell out. “He’s a massive dick. There might be douchebag residue, so be careful. And if you see anything with camo on it, don’t touch it. You’ll be converted into a woodsman, werewolf-style. It’ll be terrible.”

Steve chuckled at that and turned to face me. Thankfully, the blush was gone. Berating yourself and thinking about family will really take the wind out of your sails. 

“I’ll be careful. I wouldn’t want to get any of that residue on my fingers,” he joked.

“It would seep into your soul,” I replied.

“I would hate for that to happen,” he said.

“We all would. What would the world do if you became an asshole?” I quipped. “There’d be no hope for the rest of us.”

I saw a twinge of discomfort tighten his eyes. That was right. He wasn’t super happy with being seen as this pinnacle of goodness, and he really didn’t seem to like everyone pinning their own morality to his. I didn’t blame him. I wouldn’t want that, either. Okay, change tracks. 

“And if you became an asshole and became Captain Redneck?” I started, then leaned back and winced at the ceiling, adding, “UGH! The world would burn.”

When I looked back at him, he was smiling again, most of the tension in him gone. 

“Well,” he said on a deep breath, “I wouldn’t want to limit myself to one part of the population.”

“That’s your takeaway?” I asked incredulously, still clearly teasing him. “Limited representation?”

“Yeah,” he said, a smile curling his lips. “What would be bad is if I became Captain Red Sox.”

My jaw dropped and a shocked, breathy chuckle shuddered out of my chest. Holy shit, he was sassy again! It was beautiful.

“Wow, that rivalry must run deep,” I joked, making my voice as far down into the bass range as it could go.

“I’m guessing you’re not a baseball fan,” he replied as he dropped his bags on the side of the bed nearest the closet. 

“Nah,” I replied scrunching up my face. “I don’t have that kind of time. Or nearly enough energy to hate someone else for their team allegiance.”

“I don’t hate them,” Steve said. “I just don’t like how wrong they are.”

I laughed at that, managing to slip a few words in between the giggles. “Oh, I like you. I’m totally using that, by the way.”

Steve slipped a hand into his pocket, a half smile and effortless charm smoothing out the sudden tension in his shoulders, making him seem cool as a cucumber as he motioned his free hand toward me.

“By all means,” he said. “I don’t know when I’m going to be able to use it again, so someone should have it in their arsenal.”

“I think a lot of people are wrong, so I’m going to use it a lot,” I joked. “You’re welcome in advance.”

His other hand slid into his pocket as he looked down, seemingly trying to hide a grin and failing miserably. Feeling like now was the perfect time to take my leave so he could get settled, I took a step toward the door, and mentally stumbled when by brain sucker punched me with the thought that I’d literally just told him I liked him, along with all of the things that could imply. I really hoped he knew I meant in a friendly way and not in a sexual or even romantic way, but with how things were shaping up, I honestly didn’t know how he’d process it. Right now, he seemed to think nothing of it, but I didn’t want to be around if he started thinking otherwise. Yep. It was time to go.

“Anyway, I’ll leave you alone so you can settle in,” I said. Boy, I hoped my thoughts hadn’t crept into my tone.

“Thanks,” he replied, sounding completely normal. Thank the fucking gods. But then, when I was only a few inches from the door jamb, Steve spoke again. “Hey, Dani?”

Please gods, don’t say anything that had to do with feelings.

“Yeah?” I asked, turning to look at him. He was staring at the pillows on the bed, clearly perplexed. 

“Is this another one of your grandfather’s pranks?” he asked, pulling a hand out of his pocket to point at a dark spot on one of the pillows. 

Confused and intrigued, I dropped my bags and carefully walked over to the bed. Knowing him, if it was a prank, there could very well be a trigger, but why would he set up a prank in a room that was rarely used? And I never knew him to leave a prank on a pillow. He was more likely to pull a Tom Hagen from The Godfather and put it under the sheets. Only there was way less blood. Granted, it had been a while since I’d seen him, so maybe he was trying new things.

I got closer and stared at the dark spot on the pillow for a second, my brain taking a moment to register exactly what I was seeing. At first, I thought Steve was right, that it was a very realistic prop that my grandfather had added to his prank repertoire, but then I noticed the fine hairs on it. It dawned on me that I was staring down at a very real, very big spider that was half the size of my palm, and it had just moved.

A yelp tore from my throat as I practically levitated backwards, accidentally slamming myself into the wall. The spider moved when I screamed, and Steve jumped at the surprise of having someone shriek in his face and realizing what his pillow had a demon from hell crawling on it. I tried as hard as I could to not whimper, and instead pressed into the wall so hard I thought I might break through the plaster.

“It’s real. Very real. Very real spider. Please kill it,” I said, my breath frantic and shaky. “Kill it before I burn down this house.”

Steve didn’t kill it. Instead he turned to me, as if the creepy crawling Satan bug wasn’t literally right there ready to murder him, and looked at me with a puzzled yet slightly humored expression. If I wasn’t so terrified, I’d have glared at him so hard he’d cower like a schoolgirl in a horror film. Why was he finding this even the slightest bit funny?! Was he a closet sadist?! Did he enjoy watching people as terror punched them in the throat?! That would be just my luck. Get feelings towards this great guy only to find out he’s a sadist that’s had us all fooled this entire time!

“You’re scared of spiders?” he asked. As if he didn’t already know the answer.

“Yeah. Sure. Let’s go with scared. Not utterly terrified or downright phobic. That works great,” I said, my speech becoming so rapid that even I could barely make out what I’d said. The next sentence, though, was very clear, and only slightly rushed. “Just kill the damn thing, would you?!”

Again, he didn’t do that. He went the totally opposite route and smiled at me. My terror made him smile. Ooooh, I was going to hit him so hard once I was able to move again. I did manage to level a glare at him, but it only served to make him smile more and shake his head. That wasn’t what was supposed to happen! He was supposed to quail under my gaze, just like everyone else, not grin like this was a fucking sitcom! I was enraged enough by his reaction that it almost broke me from my terror. However, phobias are nothing if not persistent, and dread quickly washed away most of my anger and confusion to leave me with nothing but cold, illogical fear.

“You’re a spy and get shot at for a living, but spiders scare you?” he asked, humor and disbelief filling his voice. 

“Yes!” I shouted, annoyed. “Now kill it!”

His expression shifted, becoming soothing, with a lingering hint of laughter. He rounded the bed, and the mere thought of the bed made my eyes shoot back to the, thankfully motionless, spider on the pillow. But it wouldn’t stay still for long, and I was just waiting for it to jump off the bed and come skittering toward me. Steve was suddenly in front of me, blocking my line of view as his hands gently grabbed my upper arms. I moved to look around him so I could keep the demon creature in my sights, but he moved with me, dipping his head down so he could capture my eyes with his own. I tried to focus on him, I really did, but that damn thing was going to end up on his back like the squirrel on Clark Griswold in Christmas Vacation. His hands tightened on my upper arms, just enough to grab my attention. The firm grip made him more solid, somehow, and made me give him higher priority than the spider since it wasn’t actively crawling on me, and I stared up at him. He locked his eyes on mine, making sure my gaze wasn’t going to wander off again. I wasn’t sure he had to worry about that anymore. Something in his eyes had changed. Where there had been vulnerability before, there was an unwavering strength and compassion, and he seemed to be firmly planted in the present, where before he’d been lost to time and what-ifs. He’d tried to do this for me before in the hotel, I was sure, but I hadn’t wanted it then. I wanted it now. I fell into that strength and felt my heart rate start to slow.

“It’s just a spider,” he said. “It won’t hurt you.”

“Yeah, you say that now, but wait until it bites you in the middle of the night and you wake up with a necrotized leg,” I replied, my heart jumping again at the thought of it.

“That won’t happen,” Steve responded, calmly.

“But it could!” I argued.

“But it won’t,” he countered. Carefully, as if he were talking to a child or someone standing on a ledge, he added “I can kill it, but I can’t kill it on the bed, or the sheets will get dirty.”

“Ew,” I muttered. 

I felt like I should have been mad at him for talking to me like I was five, but honestly, it was working. The little half-smile he flashed at me helped, too.

“Yeah. I have to sleep there,” he joked. I smiled a little at that, and seeing that I was calming down, he added, “You can tackle this all by yourself. You can burn it like it’s nothing, right?”

I nodded hesitantly, not sure I liked where this was going.

“Then do that,” he said gently. “Quick and easy.”

Before I had time to respond, he pulled away, not letting his hands brush over my skin this time, and gave me full view of the bed. I immediately tensed up again, and comfort Steve had given me fleeing the instant he moved away, and I felt the breath freeze in my body as panic took hold. The spider hadn’t moved, thank the gods, but it was still alive, and that was a problem. He was right, though. He couldn’t kill it on the bed, and I doubted he wanted to pick it up, so there was really only one solution. And I really fucking hated it. 

Cringing all the way to my toes, I lifted the evil little creature into the air with my powers, and let out an undignified whimper as its legs flailed, the unnatural number of hairy limbs making it look like a horror show come to life. Oh, gods, I wanted this to end. Like ripping off a Band-aid, I whipped the evil little creature to hover over the hard wood and set it ablaze, willing my power to burn as hot as it could so the nasty thing would become nothing but ash. It felt like forever before I finally dropped what was left of the bug corpse to the ground. 

Air filled my lungs as relief overtook me, and I sagged against the wall. I was at peace for a split second before the feeling of ghost bugs crawling over my skin pushed me from the wall. I brushed at the feeling on my arms, completely squigged out.

“Augh! Is it on me?! I feel like it’s on me!” I exclaimed, flapping my hands to rid myself of the feeling. I moved closer to the door, almost tripping over the bags I’d dropped in my terror as I put Steve between me and the bed. Maybe distance would make the crawling sensation stop.

“You’re fine,” Steve replied, amusement clear in his voice. “You did really well.”

I pursed my lips and turned to level a glare at him, this time just barely managing to make him look contrite. 

“I’m sorry,” he replied, sounding sincere, “but that was kind of funny. Are you okay?”

“No! And it was not funny! It was gross and nasty and…” I shuddered again, the motion going all the way up my spine. 

Steve chuckled, not at all trying to hide it, which I found rude since I was very much still dealing with something ever here. Jeez, you throw a spider at an arachnophobe and you end up a side-splitting comedy routine. Who knew?

“It’s not funny,” I reiterated, glaring at him even harder. He barely flinched. Either I was losing my touch, or he was too amused to care. I was betting on the second one. I’d have to test that idea later, though, either on him or someone else. Or both. Both would work better.

“The little dance was kind of funny,” he replied, still smiling.

“That was not a dance!” I argued. “That was a disgusted shudder because that was gross! I feel gross. I need a year’s worth of showers to wash this off of me.” 

His smile turned into a grin and I could just smack him. I was having a real crisis over here and he was laughing it up like he was at Showtime at the Apollo. 

“You laugh now, but you just wait until you wake up with one of those things on you. Won’t be so funny then,” I taunted.

The barest tinge of confusion filtered through his eyes, and he said, as if it made perfect sense, “The spider is dead. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“If there’s one, there’s probably another one and it’s probably going to be in here,” I said, then lifted my hand, swirling a finger at him for emphasis as I added, “so you enjoy that.” 

“You never know. I might,” he said, any hint of bemusement lost to dry humor. 

My jaw dropped in only partially fake shock. Even the thought of someone liking a spider crawling on them was impossible for my brain to handle.

“Masochist,” I said, accusingly. 

He laughed at that, and for a second there I thought he was still trying to make me feel better, just in a different way than he had been before. Then he started talking again and it was very clear that wasn’t the case. 

“It could be in your room. One for each, you know?”

“Sadomasochist! Rude to point that out! Rude!” I cried, jabbing a finger at him.

“I’m just looking out for you. Making sure all of your bases are covered,” he replied, not looking at all upset about being called a brute. If anything, he seemed like he was trying to be innocent, but I saw the playful gleam in his eye as he added, “I can go check for you.”

Well, I wasn’t going to put any more ammunition in his impish little gun. I was done. 

“No. I got it. Thank you very much,” I replied, making my statement of gratitude sound as sarcastic as humanly possible.

He didn’t even flinch.

“Are you sure? I don’t want you to freak out again,” he said.

He sounded like he was both teasing me and genuinely asking, and another thought plinked through the back of my brain. (MAKE SURE THIS HASN’T BEEN COVERED BEFORE)Maybe he was trying to connect with me through humor. Maybe he was trying to bond a little more, so we could build up trust, and maybe even a friendship. The kind of friendship that let two people tease each other mercilessly without either of them getting angry. Which would also mean that he really was trying to make me feel better, just in a way I hadn’t expected. It made sense. Sure, we were attracted to each other to a degree. That much was obvious. It was obvious enough for me to be unnerved by it. But maybe, just maybe, he actually wanted to attempt to become my friend, or at least a close acquaintance. Or maybe I was having panic-induced hallucinations. Was that a thing? That had to be a thing.

I snapped out of my thoughts, hopefully before he could realize I’d taken a dive into them, and tried to maintain whatever annoyance I’d had before my little revelation. 

“I didn’t freak out. I was just surprised,” I replied.

“Didn’t look like surprise to me,” he said, rolling his shoulders back as he put his hands on his belt.

I flashed a half-assed glare at him, and said, “You know what?”

“Shut up?” he replied.

“Ha! No!” I said, triumphantly, happy that he couldn’t finish my thought for me this time around. I took a few steps forward, feeling all kinds of bold, and poked my finger into his hard chest as I casually added, “I don’t like you.”

“You just said you did,” he pointed out, not looking at all bothered at being jabbed in the chest. “And I think you like me a lot, actually.” 

In fact, not only did he not seem bothered, his tone was still teasing, and humor still glittered in his eyes, telling me he was taking none of this seriously. Which was good, since I didn’t mean a lick of it. What wasn’t good was that there something new under all of that laughter. The desire was back, just beneath the surface, so faint I could tell he was trying to hide it, or at the very least, control it, probably so I didn’t freak out again. It was an admirable effort, but just the bare hint of it was enough to throw me off for a moment, leaving me stammering like an idiot while I tried to regain my mental equilibrium. 

“No. No, no, no, no. No, I don’t. I have to pretend to like you. I’m supposed to be all smiley and nice and…shut up.”

“There it is,” he said with a grin, his own version of triumph slipping across his features for a mere second before he jokingly added, “I thought you were supposed to be good at lying.”

“Well, I’ve been hanging out with a guy who’s not supposed to be very good at it so maybe he’s rubbing off on me,” I replied, sassily.

His smile became softer and more tender as I watched. Something about what I’d just said had struck a chord with him, and it confused me so much that it made me lose whatever mental ground I’d managed to gain. What made everything worse was that he’d already abandoned trying to hide his feelings, or worse than that, it was impossible for him to hide his feelings, no matter how hard he tried. Now, his steadily growing passion, his heart, was slipping onto his sleeve for me to see. My heart responded, slamming against my ribcage like it was trying to escape, the throbbing pulse rushing through my veins, tightening my throat and making my head swim. 

I’d been alone for a long time. Even if I had let someone catch my eye, they were never someone worthwhile, never someone I ended up taking home, and no one worthwhile ever seemed to look at me. Yet there Steve was, possibly the worthiest man I’d ever met, looking down at me like he wanted me. And gods help me, as wrong as it was, I wanted him.

“Maybe,” he said, his voice far gentler than my cheeky tone had deserved, even if it was laced with humor. “But that’s not a bad thing.”

“I guess not,” I replied, not sounding even halfway as confident as I had moments ago. 

All of the laughter slowly fell away from Steve’s face, leaving only ardor to flare behind his blue eyes. His fingers brushed my wrist, feather light and a far cry from the comforting touches I’d pulled away from so many times before. He waited for me to jerk away, but I couldn’t. My breath caught in my chest, making my heart pound even harder, and making it impossible for me to do anything but part my lips in a desperate attempt to take a shaky breath. Slowly, tentatively, his hand moved up my arm, his touch becoming firmer and more certain as his thumb caressed my skin and he took a small step forward, leaving only a foot between us. He was still waiting for me to move, and I could see his hope that it would be toward him, that I would be the one to close the gap. Gods knew I wanted to throw myself at him. I wanted to wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him in a way neither of us would ever forget, but I just couldn’t allow myself the sinful luxury of knowing him that way. It was unprofessional. Most importantly, it wasn’t what he needed right now. He didn’t need any kind of new relationship while he was trying to find his friend. No. I couldn’t let this happen.

He saw it in my eyes, I think, as I took a reluctant step backwards, not so far that I was out of his reach completely, but far enough for his hand to fall away from my arm. The sting of rejection, quickly followed by graceful acceptance, slid across his features. He knew pursuing anything more than friendship was a bad idea, but I could tell, somewhere deep in his eyes, that he didn’t care. If I would let him, he would certainly like to try for more, professionalism and mission be damned. Until then, if it ever did happen, he’d let it go, or at the very least, try to let it go. 

I didn’t like any of this. How close we’d just been, how close we’d almost been, or the fact that I seemed to be reading him like a fucking book. I needed to get out of this room.

“I’m going to go grab the vacuum cleaner for the…you know,” I said, awkwardly motioning at the ashes on the floor as I took another step back.

“I can do that,” Steve offered. He sounded only slightly uncomfortable, and I kind of wanted to smack him for it. But I guessed he’d gotten pretty used to being uncomfortable after he’d done all of those cringy propaganda campaigns.

“Nah. I know where it is,” I said, waving a dismissive hand at him. Immediately thinking that was rude, I said, “If you want to go check the other room for demon bugs so I don’t die of fright, though, I would be grateful.”

He gave me a small half-smile, one that said he knew I was trying to both run away and get rid of him. To his credit, he didn’t call me out on it.

“I can do that,” he said. “I’ll be thorough.”

“I greatly appreciate that,” I replied, backing out of the door. “I’ll be right back.”

With that, I left both him and my bags in his room as I went in search of the little handheld vacuum cleaner. If I’d had half a brain cell left, I’d have been polite and moved my stuff to my room, but I was in full idiot-mode and it didn’t seem like I’d be snapping out of it anytime soon. I mean, what the hell was wrong with me?! Yes, he was nice. Sure, he was cute. Of course, he was a smart. But why would any of that make my stomach do backflips, especially when I knew it was a pipe dream of epic proportions? I was torturing myself! And Fury, whether he knew it or not, was enabling my hormonal downward spiral into madness. Why couldn’t he have chosen a heterosexual male agent for this, or a lesbian agent? Hell, I even knew of at least one asexual agent! Why not them?! Why me?! Oh, right. The powers thing, aka the other thing that was slowly driving me insane on this mission. Gods help me, I was going to be in a straitjacket by the end of the month.

Frustrated, I scrubbed my hand over my face, so ready for this entire thing to be done and over with. If Barnes could just show up on the doorstep in five minutes, that would be great. Fuck, no it wouldn’t. My grandparents would have to move. Goddammit! 

With a low groan, I dragged my hands down my face, pulling down on my cheeks until my lower eyelids pulled back to show too much white before smooshing my cheeks back up so far they squinted my eyes shut. It was a Twilight Zone episode in the making, born from irritation. All William Shatner had to put up with was a guy in a funky monkey suit and a plane crash. I had to put up with feeling like my life and mind were falling apart. Okay, maybe Shatner did, too, but a guy dressed as a chimp that fell in a swamp would make this so much more bearable. Please, give me a guy in a funky monkey suit and end this with a hard cut to a black screen. It would be kinder. 

I let go of my face, only to realize that I’d made it all the way to the laundry room downstairs without paying any attention to what I was doing. The room was just to the left of the foyer as you walked into the living room, so if you were coming from the stairs, you were walking past couches and things you could easily trip over if you weren’t watching where you were going, and I’d managed to wind up in front of the washing machine while I’d been stuck in my own head. I didn’t know if that was impressive or troubling. I did know that I didn’t like it.

Shoving my thoughts and feelings as far back into my brain as they would go, which wasn’t that far since my mind was a jerk, I did a quick search of the laundry room for the fancy portable vacuum cleaner and found it on a shelf next to the dryer. I snatched it up and quickly made my way back toward the stairs, not giving myself time to even think about hesitating. I knew what would happen. If I paused for another second, I’d get stuck in my own head, probably long enough for Steve to get worried and come looking for me, which would make him ask questions about why I was taking so long. I didn’t want that. So, I booked it up the stairs, taking two at a time, my mind so focused on getting the ashes cleaned up that I didn’t even look into my room to see if Steve was in there. 

Turned out, he was, since he certainly wasn’t in his room. Neither were my bags, for that matter, meaning he must’ve taken mine with him, and making me wonder why he was still in there. How long did it take to check for spiders? Hell, how long had I been downstairs? It felt like I’d been down there a while, but only a few minutes seemed to have passed. Ugh! I really needed to get my shit together. Fast. 

Still berating myself, since that was my hobby now, I knelt down next to the little pile of ashes and flipped on the vacuum. The fried corpse of nature’s abomination disappeared into the funnel, and I felt my shoulders relax a little. Out of sight, out of mind, I guess. Now, if only I could do that with my current problems. Maybe I could just pretend that what’d happened hadn’t happened. Yeah. I’d deny the shit out of it and things could go back to normal. Sounded good to me. 

I pushed up from the floor and clomped my way out of Steve’s room, using the heavy footfalls to let Steve know I was coming. Normally, I was pretty quiet, even on the creaky wooden floors, since you kind of had to train yourself out of sounding like you were an elephant walking down the hallway if you wanted to survive my job, but I really didn’t want to sneak up on the guy who currently had most of my guns. Plus, it just seemed rude. 

I rounded the door jamb to my room to find Steve standing next to my bed, a manila folder in his hand. One of the duffel bags was open, and the laptop was on the nightstand closest to the door, open and running. He looked up from the folder as I came into the room and had the decency to look apologetic before I even got the chance to raise an eyebrow at him. I leaned on the door jamb and raised a questioning eyebrow at him, anyway, giving him a little smile to show him I wasn’t upset and that everything was totally cool.

“Whatcha doin’?” I asked in a sing-song voice.

His shoulders dropped half an inch and his guilty, somewhat uncomfortable expression changed into something more humored. It took me a moment to realize that remorse and that twinge of discomfort hadn’t been the only thing that had settled into his features when I’d caught him; there had been way more angst in his eyes than there had been when I’d left him, and only some of it had slipped away when I’d tried to be funny. That, to me, meant not only that he was he feeling the same type of unease I was, but that he was sneakily using someone’s file a distraction. Probably Barnes’ file. Which would mean it wasn’t just a distraction but him being obsessive. 

“Just checking to see if we got a hit on Bucky yet,” he replied. 

“Since you’re not running for the car, I’m guessing we didn’t,” I said.

He took a deep breath, seemingly inhaling sadness. His face fell and his eyes darted back down to the open file in his hands before he snapped it shut and dropped in into the open duffel bag. Yep, it was definitely Barnes’ file. 

“No. Nothing yet,” he said.

“Well,” I started, watching him as he turned to look at the computer screen, his hands going to his belt as he turned his back on me, “the day is still young. Maybe when the day is old, he’ll pop up.”

The day wasn’t that young, anymore. It was at least noon, but I could try to give my companion hope. And it seemed to work.

Steve moved his head a little, almost making it seem like he was looking over his shoulder at me, and I thought I could see a little smile at the corner of his mouth. He looked at the screen again and his back tensed as he took another deep breath.

“You’re probably right,” he said.

“What do you mean, ‘probably’?” I quipped. 

Maybe I should have been letting him mope and, you know, feel his feelings or whatever, but I couldn’t leave well enough alone, and something told me he’d done enough sulking to fill four lifetimes. He needed to have a little fun so he didn’t develop depression, if he hadn’t already. And just like I’d hoped, Steve’s body relaxed, the deep breath he’d taken coming out as a chuckle. He dropped his head and shook it, almost like be couldn’t believe I had the audacity to crack jokes after everything that had happened in the past fifteen minutes alone. He turned to me, a trace of humor glittering in his eyes and the corners of his lips curling ever so slightly.

“I’m supah smaht,” I said in a terrible Boston accent, shrugging my free shoulder and flashing a big grin at him. Before he had the chance to respond, I darted my eyes around the room and asked, “Am I okay to come in?”

Steve’s face looked like his mind had just done a one-eighty trying to keep up with the conversational shift while he tried to process, and quash, whatever emotions he hadn’t been able to express, and it took him a second to reorient himself before he responded in earnest. 

“Yeah, it’s clear. No bugs in here.”

“They’re not bugs. They’re demons,” I said, pushing away from the wall.

“You and I have a very different definition of demons,” he said. 

He watched me as I walked further into the room and moved toward the foot of the bed. It was a subtle attempt to put distance and an object between us without seeming like I didn’t want to be close to him. From the way his eyebrows furrowed slightly, I could tell I wasn’t subtle enough. I was going to have to work on that. Quick! Defuse the situation with comedy! 

“That’s what we call subsection A and subsection B,” I quipped, jabbing my free hand into the air as if to make two little rows. 

“Read a lot of dictionaries, do you?” he teased, quickly picking back up where we’d left off earlier. He was clearly trying to ignore certain thoughts he was having. Hey, we had something in common!

“What can I say? I like the little examples at the end of the definitions,” I replied with a full shrug, lifting both hands and the mini vacuum into the air.

Steve somehow managed to both crack smile at my stupid not-joke and eye the vacuum in curiosity at the same time.

“I’m guessing my room is clear now, too?” he asked, motioning towards the little machine with his head.

“Yep,” I replied, moving the vacuum around as if I were examining it. “It’s in here, and it’s not getting out anytime soon.”

He didn’t say anything, and that caught me off-guard. I’d thought he’d at least say thank you and instead he’d gone radio silence. I looked up and found him staring at me incredulously, his eyebrows pinched, his eyes narrowed slightly, and the corner of his lips upturned in the smallest, most confused shadow of a smile he could muster.

“It’s dead,” he said, as if that should be common sense, since it was.

“It’s evil, Steve,” I countered, saucily. “Don’t put it past evil things to reincorporate. That’s the basis of every zombie movie.”

He caught a laugh in his chest, his shoulders shaking as he tried to not chuckle at me and ended up grinning instead.

“It’s just a spider,” he replied.

“That’s what they want you to think,” I said, pointing the vacuum at him. Something plinked in the back of my mind, a penny of awareness dropping, and my eyes opened wide in horror. “Oh my god, I sound like a conspiracy theorist.”

“A little bit, yeah,” he said, his grin turning into a stupidly pretty half-smile.

“Mmm,” I hummed, pursing my lips. “I feel a lot better about myself now. Thanks.”

“Glad I could help,” he joked.

“Yeah, you’re super helpful,” I replied, sarcastically. I thought about that for a half second, then amended, “You are actually super helpful, though, so thank you. For, you know, checking my room.”

All of his jesting fell away and he flashed me one of those heartfelt, innocent smiles of his, the ones that made your toes curl and your knees turn to jelly. 

“You’re welcome,” he said. He motioned a hand toward me, then, and added, “And thank you for getting rid of the spider in my room.”

“You’re welcome,” I said.

Well, I didn’t know where to go from here. What did you do after things turned sincere, but you didn’t want them to get mushy? Better question: how did I get to my stuff, or get him out of my room, without being rude? I felt the muscles in my shoulders tense and really wished I hadn’t procrastinated on getting that massage. Steve shifted on his feet slightly, his movements stiffer than they had been moments before, and we were rapidly finding the embarrassment we’d managed to mostly avoid in his room. Oh, this was turning out to be just awesome. Okay, how did I fix this? 

Without thinking, I started moving and talking, saying the first words that came to mind, which was usually a really bad idea and got me into a lot of trouble. This time, thankfully, I wasn’t a complete idiot.

“If you’re hungry, there’s probably food in the freezer,” I said, moving around the corner of the bed and bringing myself closer to Steve. “I can’t guarantee how good it will be, though. Freezer burn is a real bitch.”

Steve looked like a drowning man who’d just been thrown a life vest. Now that he wasn’t trying to tread awkward waters, an impish twinkle came to his eye.

“What? You mean you’re not going to cook for me?” he asked, leaning hard into the teasing. 

I narrowed my eyes at him, pulling my lips back in a grimace that could almost be mistaken for a smirk as I jerked my head back. My pursed lips twisted into a shadow of a smile so he knew I was having fun with him, and his face got brighter, the knowledge that the game was still on taking a load off of his mind. 

“You got hands, don’t ya?” I asked.

I bit my bottom lip as I slapped the handheld vacuum into his chest for emphasis, just hard enough to make a pop of sound. His hands were on the vacuum before I’d even let go, instinct taking over. I gave him a look of fake surprise, my eyes wide and mouth popped open, the latter of which was hard to do when you were trying to not grin.

“Huh,” I said. “Looks like you do.”

I smiled up at him and patted his hands to stress just how good he was at using them. He gave me a half-smile in return and a look that said I’d won this round, though I wasn’t sure how many rounds he was expecting. Granted, we’d been playing off of each other for a while now, so maybe the entire time I guarded him would be one big tennis match of wit, which he would probably win since he was ten times smarter than I was. If anything, it was good to know that we were both capable of moving past the awkwardness of both almost kissing and the room going dead. We even did it without trying too hard. And was it just me or was he becoming a little more unreserved with his jokes?

My stomach decided to answer that question for me by clenching hard. The fact that it was answering a different question entirely, and was demanding more than replying, was beside the point. It wanted food, and if I didn’t give it what it wanted, it would be forced to growl at me. It wasn’t as bad as it sounded, but having a conversation while your stomach was talking too was incredibly difficult. Neither Steve nor I had eaten anything since last night, and if I was hungry, that had to mean Steve was starving. The guy probably needed three times the caloric intake that I did just to keep that muscle mass. No. Wait. Those were chemically enhanced muscles, at least mostly, but a guy that big had to need more food, right? Sure.

I didn’t say anything as I quickly moved past him to grab the laptop and spun on my heel to book it toward the hallway, thinking about what could be in the kitchen that I could make Steve cook, since I’d already told him I was making him do it and I wasn’t in the habit of backing out of things if I thought I could get my way. I was almost to the bedroom door when I heard Steve start following me. I must’ve caught him off-guard by peacing out in the middle of the conversation. Oops. 

“You can start making stuff now!” I said, brightly, pretending like I hadn’t accidentally been rude.

“I don’t know where anything is. You even said that. Remember?” Steve asked.

As if trying to remind me of that conversation, he gently grabbed my hand as I reached the top of the stairs and pressed the handle of the vacuum into my palm before I had the chance to turn around. When I did, I found him a few steps behind me, already out of my reach. The game of cleaning appliance hot potato was over already, unless I chucked the thing at his head, which was a really bad, if not kind of funny, idea. I mean, if he caught it and dust went everywhere, I would roll down the stairs laughing.

I bit my tongue to keep from smiling and instead tried to give him the flattest, most considering look I could, looking him up and down like he’d done to me when we’d first met. He was right, so I expected him to lift his chin and stand defiantly under my gaze, and for the most part he did, his face stoic and almost challenging, but he shifted his feet. I’d made him flinch. Yay! Point for me! I didn’t want him to know I’d seen him squirm, as that might make things awkward again, so I locked my eyes on his. That didn’t help, and I tried to remind myself that the hallway was dimmer than the bedroom as I lifted my chin at him.

“Touché,” I finally said.

Once again, I turned on my heel and left him where he was, letting him choose whether or not to follow me down the stairs. He followed, either hunger or a need for companionship in a strange place driving him forward. 

“I can just tell you where stuff is, though,” I continued.

“I’m not sure how to use that oven. I might burn the house down,” he replied.

“You’re a smart man and it’s an electric. I’m sure you’ll figure it out just fine,” I said.

“What if it’s poisoned? As my bodyguard,” he stressed the last word just little, “aren’t you supposed to make sure no one poisons me?” 

Okay, now I knew he was becoming more carefree with his humor. Something in the back of my mind wondered if this was how he acted with Barnes, or with anyone else, for that matter. I doubted he acted like this with just me, but nevertheless, it made me think that he was shifting me further into the Friend Column. I really hoped that was as far as he was placing me, though. 

Oh, who was I kidding? He’d almost kissed me. I just had to hope that he’d never do that again, that I’d never give him the chance to do it again, and that we’d just become good friends. And since I wanted to be a good friend, I turned to look at him as my foot hit the bottom step, giving him my best, dry “you have got to be kidding me” look.

“If I’m going to die for you, it’s going to be in a hail of gunfire, not eating Bolognese,” I replied sassily. “But seriously, my grandparents aren’t holding on to frozen cyanide lasagnas. They haven’t built up an immunity yet.”

I turned back around, which was another new hobby of mine, took the last step down, and moved toward the couch so I could set the laptop down on the cushions. 

“If you’re so worried about it being poisoned,” I added, bending over the back of the couch, “feed it to a rat first. I’m sure you can find one in the field out there.”

Steve came around my left side, being a gentleman by not standing behind me, but still standing a little too close for comfort, because he was deliberately fucking with me at this point. He was like, two feet away, but he was close enough to be in my personal bubble. I heard him take a breath to start arguing, and instantly my hand dropped the laptop on the couch and clapped against his shoulder, pushing him away. Since I was still partially bent over the back of the couch, the angle was awkward, and the space between us gave me no force to work with, but Steve moved back anyway, a soft chuckle rumbling his chest. I was so glad he was having fun. We’d see how much fun he had when I put a fake snake under his pillow.

“You’re a jerk,” I said dryly as I straightened up.

I looked over at him to find that he was already in the kitchen, gaze seemingly focused on the refrigerator as he tried to determine where the freezer was on this particular model. He’d figure it out, and since I was sick of holding on to a vacuum cleaner full of bug, I made my way toward the laundry room. 

“I don’t think anyone’s called me a jerk before,” Steve said over the sound of the fridge door opening.

I honestly didn’t doubt that. At least, no one had called him a jerk and meant it. I sure as hell didn’t mean it, and though I was positive he knew that, I changed my tone, adding a dash of teasing to the wryness of my voice. 

“They weren’t being honest with you,” I said.

I set the vacuum down and walked out of the laundry room to find Steve turning to look at me, a covered aluminum pan in his hand and incredulity in his eyes. Playfully wiggling my eyebrows at him, I went to sit on the couch and started taking off my boots, content with being lazy while he did the domestic work. Which was going to be so hard for him, since all he had to do was figure out an oven and heat something. Okay, maybe that was going to be a touch difficult because even I had issues figuring out oven models that I was unfamiliar with, and I hadn’t been frozen for sixty years.

“Honesty is key in good relationships,” I added.

“That’s what you call honesty?” he asked.

“Obviously. What do you call it?” I replied.

“A good way to not get any cyanide lasagna,” he said, dryly.

With an exaggerated gasp, I popped off my right boot and shifted in my seat to stare at him in mock affront, my mouth still hanging open and my eyes wide. He’d fake hurt my fake feelings!

“Rude,” I said, frowning at him. I pointed an accusing finger at him and added, “See? You’re being a jerk.” 

“No, I’m not. You insulted me. You don’t get cyanide lasagna if you’re going to insult people,” he said, sounding not at all bothered by anything I’d called him as he opened the oven door. 

He slid the aluminum pan onto the rack and straightened up, immediately pressing the right buttons to preheat the oven and impressing the hell out of me. Of all the things that should have impressed me about him, that shouldn’t have been one of them, but it had taken me five minutes to figure that stupid thing out when my grandparents had gotten it, and he’d apparently figured it out while he’d been chit-chatting with me. Trying to ignore that a guy in his nineties was better at technology than I was, I shifted in my seat to take off my other boot.

“Okay, first of all, I do not insult people. I point out the obvious. I am the nicest person you will ever hope to meet.”

I could actually feel the skeptical look he was giving the back of my head as I set my boots next to the coffee table. Okay, maybe he was right, but I wasn’t the worst person. I turned around again and propped my left knee up on the turquoise cushion, draping my arm over the back of the couch so I could look at him without hurting my back or neck. He was leaning his butt against the counter, because he was tall enough to do that, his hands propped up on the granite on either side of his hips, his eyebrows raised expectantly. Well, wasn’t he just Joe Cool? 

“Second, I was really looking forward to playing Jonestown with you, and wow, I am so going to hell for that joke.”

Maybe I was the worst. My dark sense of humor was starting to cross some lines and that wasn’t good. Okay, it was kind of good, because it protected my psyche to a certain degree. I mean, I certainly wasn’t the only person who used dark humor as a coping method. You could walk onto any crime scene or scene with a particularly horrific injury, and you’d hear everyone behind the yellow tape cracking jokes that the general public would deem downright offensive. They weren’t being rude or mean for the sake of it; they were making off-color quips because if they didn’t laugh, they’d cry. It was a self-preservation tactic that could slip into everyday life if you let it. And I’d just let it. Whoops.

Steve’s eyebrows beetled in confusion and apprehension, and his arms crossed over his chest, looking fully ready to be disappointed in me. Great.

“Why would you go to hell for that joke? What’s Jonestown?” he asked.

Delightful. Way to ruin the mood, Dani. Jesus, I was a fucking moron sometimes. And because I was still being an idiot, I wasn’t quite sure how to respond. I was having fun with him and I didn’t get to have a lot of fun, and that was saying a lot about my life. I didn’t want to tell him the horrible details and have him turn into a bleeding heart on me or go into a lecture about how it was wrong to joke about such terrible things. Selfish, but true.

“It’s not something you need to worry about,” I replied.

“Honesty is key in a good relationship,” he said, quoting me. Except he sounded like he meant it.

Note to self: stop saying things you don’t want thrown in your face later on, because he was exceptionally good at that. I let out a heavy sigh and slumped against the back of the couch, pressing my lips into the cushions while I gave him the most apologetic and wary wide eyes I could. It kind of felt like they were the eyes a worried puppy would give you, and from the look on Steve’s face, that’s how he felt, too. I lifted my mouth away from the cushions with a grimace.

“Okay, so my sense of humor has gotten really dark since I joined S.H.I.E.L.D., so please don’t be too mad at me,” I said.

“My generation perfected dark humor, Dani,” he said, giving me a reassuring smile. “I’m just curious.”

Okay, he had a point. The Great Depression was greatly depressing, so it would only make sense that literally everyone would take on a more macabre sense of humor. Plus, he’d been in the Army, and if you were going to survive World War II, your quips had to be almost as devastating as the artillery rounds. 

“Fair enough,” I said with a single nod, pursing my lips into a thin line. Figuring that waiting wasn’t going to make him judge me less, I jumped right in. “Basic facts, Jonestown was a religious cult led by Jim Jones that became infamous because over nine hundred people died in a mass suicide after they drank poisoned Kool-Aid at Jones’ command. And I just made a joke about it. I mean people joke about it all the time, but in a really vague way. Like, ‘they drank the Kool-Aid’ means someone fell for someone else’s bullshit, only, you know, this time there wasn’t death involved.”

Steve held up a hand to stop my rambling, a small smile creeping across his face. 

“I don’t think you’re going to hell for that joke,” he said into the new silence. “Dark humor doesn’t make you a bad person. It just means you find humor in places other people don’t.”

“Point taken,” I said.

I mean, he was right. And I knew that dark humor was fine, and I knew he that wasn’t a Boy Scout, but somehow it still felt wrong to make such dark jokes in front of a guy who had a squeaky-clean image. I was really going to have to work on changing how I thought of him. 

“Besides,” he added, playfully, “you said you wanted to die in a hail of gunfire. You can’t do that if you play Jonestown.”

I opened my mouth with a click of my tongue, my body wanting to throw back a witty retort despite my mind not having one, seeing as how it was currently dealing with the fact that he’d decided to join in on the Dark Humor Games. Instead, I settled for popping my mouth closed and pulling my lips down into sturgeon mouth, nodding all the while.

“Another good point,” I said.

He flashed one of those annoyingly knee-weakening smiles at me and said, “Thank you.”

“No, thank you,” I replied, turning away so I didn’t have to look at him being all cute and shit. “At least now I know I’m not just the absolute worst.” 

I moved the laptop to the coffee table and pushed myself up from the couch. While Steve’s idea of a good time might have been to stare at a static computer screen, it was not my idea of a fun time. If I was going to watch something for hours on end while we waited for Barnes to show up, it was going to have moving pictures and sound. I moved around the beechwood table to stand in front of the left set of entertainment shelves, looking down at the simple stereo system with three remotes stacked on top. Ugh. I hated figuring out the remotes. 

“You’ve met the absolute worst people,” Steve pointed out as I picked up two remotes to study them. “We both have.”

“Oh, did you have jocks in high school, too?” I joked, absent-mindedly.

Steve sighed, the distance making it hard to hear but the message coming across loud and clear. I was officially being annoying. 

“Yeah, I know what you mean. Doesn’t mean I can’t be terrible in my own way,” I said. 

I finally found the TV remote and turned back to look at him. He hadn’t moved and inch, not even to uncross his arms, but at least his smile was gone. Wait, was I happy about that or upset about that? On one hand, it meant that my knees weren’t going weak like a 1920’s ingenue, but on the other hand, it meant that shit was starting to get serious. Man, I was just never happy, was I? Huh. Maybe I could fix that right now.

“You want to watch something?” I asked, motioning one of the remotes over my shoulder.

Maybe be distracted while I go upstairs to make a phone call?

Steve finally moved his arms away from his chest to rest his hands on the counter again, looking like he both wanted to argue with me and answer my question at the same time. But I’d moved on, and I’d taken him with me. He couldn’t go back now. 

“Sure,” he said. A man of many words, that Steve Rogers.

“Anything you want to watch?” I asked.

He opened his mouth to respond just as the oven beeped that it was at the set temperature, making it look like he was the one doing the beeping. I couldn’t help the grin that blossomed over my face as he turned to set the timer.

“That’s not a movie,” I chuckled. 

He hesitated, his shoulders and head dropping as he flashed a smile at my stupid joke, his finger hovering over the timer buttons. Oh, crap. He had no idea how long to cook the food. 

“Set it for fifty-five,” I said before he had the chance to move.

“Thank you,” he said. I guess he’d been trying to figure that out.

“No problem,” I replied.

I turned to the dark television screen as he moved away from the stove and clicked the button to turn it on. The stereo turned on instead. Goddammit. Was it too much to ask to keep the remotes with their respective devices?! None of these things had logos on them! I made an inhuman sound of frustration as I turned the stereo off, the noise managing to come from my nose, throat, and cheeks all at the same time. I went back to the remotes and decided to just start hitting buttons, since that would waste less time than trying to figure out which remote was which simply by looking at them.

“So, suggestions?” I asked as the DVD player turned on. I made a sound very similar to an exasperated Beldar Conehead and clicked the only power button left. 

“No. I’m still playing catch-up so I don’t know even know where to begin,” Steve replied, ignoring the weird sounds I was making as the default station flashed to life on the television screen.

Oh, fair point. I thought about that for a moment, wondering what we could watch that wasn’t too serious or too strange. Speaking of Coneheads, it was a really good movie, but I wasn’t sure how he would feel about it since it had also been born from a really odd Saturday Night Live skit. But Dan Aykroyd had been in a bunch of funny things, like The Blues Brothers and Ghostbusters. I wasn’t sure how well Steve, a Catholic man, would take a movie about two felonious men claiming they were on a mission from God because a nun yelled at them. Maybe go with the scientific rebels instead, even though that movie was pretty weird, too.

“How about Ghostbusters?” I asked. “It’s a comedic staple of pop culture and we have the DVD.”

“Sounds good to me,” Steve replied.

“Rock on,” I said. I grabbed the DVD player remote and started going through the motions of setting everything up to play. “Have a seat. Make yourself at home. Just…take off your shoes and don’t put your feet on the couch if you value your life. My grandmother will kill you if you get her couch dirty.”

I heard him move away, his boot scuffing on the wood floor as he pivoted to sit on the couch.

“Your grandmother would really try to hurt me because I got her couch dirty?” he asked, sounding genuinely surprised and a little skeptical. 

“No, she would not try. She just would,” I replied. I finished the set-up and bent down to pick up a thick DVD folder from one of the bottom shelves and started flipping through the translucent, plastic pages. “She wouldn’t care if you were the President of the United States. If you ruin her stuff, you get your ass kicked.”

“She sounds pretty tough,” he said.

“How do you think she’s put up with my grandfather for all these years?” I joked.

“Good point,” he chuckled.

I found the DVD just as I heard Steve set his first boot down with a heavy thud. By the time he’d finished removing the other one, I had the movie in the player and ready to go. I turned around to find Steve on the left side of the couch, sidled up against the arm rest as if he were trying to place himself as far away from where I’d been sitting as possible without ending up on the love seat. Fair. You got a crick in your neck if you tried to watch the TV for long periods of time from over there. He was leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and his eyes desperately trying to not look at the laptop. I gave him points for trying. 

In one motion, I held the DVD remote out to him and turned the laptop away so he couldn’t see the screen. Maybe if I took away some of the temptation and distracted him, he’d breathe a little. He looked up at me with stunned, wide eyes that were the color of a clear winter sky, apparently not expecting me to hand the reins over to him, and butterflies burst to life in my stomach. I don’t know what it was, but there was something about him gazing up at me that just did it for me. I started to stomp on that thought, and the butterflies it produced, but stopped when I realized I could use it as fuel to march my happy ass up those stairs and yell at Fury.

My thoughts shattered when Steve carefully took the remote from me, his large hand making it look much smaller than it actually was. His expression had turned inquisitive, and I was really hoping he was just wondering why I was giving him the remote rather than trying to guess what I was thinking.

“I’ll be right back,” I said, walking around the love seat. “Just press select whenever you want. The previews take forever, anyway.”

“Where are you going?” he asked, sounding utterly suspicious as he watched me. Okay, so he wasn’t just wondering about the remote. I’d somehow given something away. Five bucks says it was my goddamn pupils. Traitors. 

“To get a phone,” I replied. Technically true. “I also need to give Fury an update and I should do that before I forget. Seriously, start it without me. I’ve seen it so much I can quote it. I’ll be right back.”

He’d barely opened his mouth to protest, or at least ask more questions, before I started bounding up the stairs. It was time for me to make my case and get the hell out of here before my mind shattered.


End file.
